In Kentucky, in the United States, the number of people who died in the floods that hit the country rose to at least 20. This is what the governor of the state, Andrey Bishir, reported today (Saturday) – and warned that the situation may claim the lives of more people. The dead so far include six children, one of them a year old.
It was the heavy rains that led to one of the worst disasters recorded in recent years in the Appalachia region. President Joe Biden even called the floods a “major disaster” and ordered federal aid forces to be sent to Kentucky yesterday. Scientists believe that climate change is the cause of extreme climate conditions like in Kentucky.
The destruction in Kentucky. Photo: AP
About 30 inches of rain fell in parts of eastern Kentucky over the past week. The National Guard and the police rescued dozens of people with helicopters from houses that were covered in water up to the roofs and from vehicles parked on roads that had turned into rivers. Flood warnings are also in place for northeast Tennessee and parts of West Virginia, where the governor has declared a state of emergency for six counties in the state. Heavy rains also hit Las Vegas and flooded some gambling houses.
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On Wednesday, heavy rains resulted in unusually widespread flooding in large areas of the United Arab Emirates. The Prime Minister of the Emirates, Mohammed bin Rashid, ordered to allocate places in hotels for the benefit of families whose homes were damaged and evacuated from the eastern region of the country.
Floods and rain sweep the UAE’s Fujairah, and Mohammed bin Rashid directs to support rescue operations#the event pic.twitter.com/TAqkYXcGet
– The event (@AlHadath) July 27, 2022
On the other hand, Europe suffered a heavy heat wave last week. In Great Britain, the temperature exceeded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time since the beginning of measurements in the country. Many fires broke out across the country, including in London. More than a thousand firefighters battled fires in the south and east of the capital. Fires raged in France and Spain that broke out due to the heat wave. More than 16 thousand people were evacuated from their homes in southwestern France. In the south of neighboring Spain, more than 3,200 people left their homes as a result of the fires, and more than 1,000 deaths were recorded in Spain and Portugal as a result of the heat wave and the fires.