Temperatures across Spain have hit record highs for October, with the unseasonable heat likely to last over a week, the Aemet weather agency said Monday.
High temperatures across Spain resulted in three "record days of heat" that began on Friday, with the mercury peaking on Sunday at 38.2°C in the southern town of Montoro near Cordoba, the bureau said.
The previous October record was set in 2014, when the mercury hit 37.5°C in the southern town of Marbella.
"On October 1, it reached an all-time high for this time of year in practically the entire Iberian Peninsula," Aemet said on X, formerly Twitter.
It said that nearly 40 per cent of its weather stations had registered a temperature of 32°C or higher.
The situation was similar on Monday, with the southern city of Seville reaching 38.1°C, its figures showed.
"But the most extraordinary thing is that there are still quite a few unseasonably warm days left. We could have up to 10 more days of record heat," Aemet said.
Although it has become accustomed to soaring summer temperatures, notably in the south, Spain has experienced a sharp rise in longer and hotter heatwaves, experts say.
The country, which had its hottest year on record in 2022, has been in the grip of successive heatwaves this year, which began unusually early in April, exacerbating a continuing drought.
Experts say the recurring heatwaves, which have been getting longer and more intense, are a consequence of climate change.
The Iberian Peninsula is bearing the brunt of climate change in Europe, with droughts and wildfires increasingly common.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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'Lost in Space'
Creators: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Irwin Allen
Stars: Molly Parker, Toby Stephens, Maxwell Jenkins
Rating: 4/5
