Business_news 31 photos show how people have endured blistering heat waves around the world this summer
Business_news
- Heat waves have swept the world this summer.
- The US, Europe, Japan, Russia, and Greenland all experienced, at times, record-breaking high temperatures in June and July.
- From Rome to Washington to Tokyo, see how people around the world have tried to escape the heat.
- Visit business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
No one can outrun the heat, not this year.
It’s the height of August, and many parts of the world have been dealing with relentless heat waves this summer. The US, Europe, Japan, Russia, and Greenland have all experienced record-breaking high temperatures. July was likely the hottest month in recorded history.
These heat waves don’t care about borders. Few cultural differences exist when it comes to keeping cool.
Wildfires are burning in Alaska and Russia, and Greenland is melting rapidly. People try to escape the relentless heat in fire hydrants, fountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans alike.
Here are 31 photos showing the struggle to stay cool, hydrated, and even-tempered during a particularly hot summer.
Business_news In New York, a man splashes his face in July, using a fountain as best he can.
Seth Wenig / AP
In July, the New York Triathlon was canceled because of the heat for the first time ever. The organization donated 1,900 gallons or water and Gatorade to New Yorkers in need.
Business_news In Brooklyn, children take the cooling off process a little more seriously.
Yana Paskova / Getty
In July, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency in the city as the heat index was expected to reach 115 degrees.
Business_news In Washington Heights, New York, fire hydrants are harnessed to keep cool.
Mike Segar / Reuters
Just don’t open it improperly. Every minute a fire hydrant is open illegally, more than 1,000 gallons pour out. To stop water wastage, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection deploys a team of teenagers to inform New Yorkers about the dangers of it. But New Yorkers can request that firefighters open a hydrant to use as a sprinkler — officially.
Business_news In Washington D.C., there’s no rest for those behind the camera, even in sunny weather. Here, a man keeps himself cool while fulfilling his duties as photographer, in the World War II Memorial.
Yuri Gripas / Reuters
Washington D.C. has 20 public pools people can swim in to keep cool.
Business_news Cold treats can help. This traveler from Chile is eating a blue slushie.
Mary F. Calvert / Reuters
Business_news Outside the big cities, taking one’s mind off the heat is a little more on the nose. Here, a pair race down the Guadalupe River, in Texas.
Eric Gay / AP
One Texan told The New York Times, “A summer day below 100 degrees is an invigorating as an arctic blast.”
Business_news And here a woman takes a slightly more measured approach to keeping cool.
Eric Gay / AP
Business_news In Boston, kids and adults alike cool off in the fountain on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
Brian Snyder / Reuters
Business_news In Alaska, a man wields both an umbrella and an icy treat to keep himself and a child cool.
Mark Thiessen / AP
Business_news In the United Kingdom, a guard does his best to ignore the heat. It requires a jaw-clenching effort.
Frank Augstein / AP
Britain struggles particularly with the heat – most of its homes aren’t built to keep cool; instead they’re built to keep warm. It also named one hot day in July “Furnace Friday.”
Business_news Across the English Channel, Parisians and tourists sit in the shade by the Seine River. One of the best ways to keep cool is to stay out of direct sun.
Regis Duvignau / Reuters
Business_news On July 25, Paris recorded an all-time high temperature – 108.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The Trocadero fountain was opened to the public to keep people cool.
Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Business_news In southern France, an art installation called “Umbrella Sky Project” provides visitors with a photo opportunity and lots of cover from the sun.
Boris Horvat / AFP / Getty
This exhibition, made up of hundreds of umbrellas, has been held in cities and towns across the world since 2011.
Business_news Where umbrellas aren’t available, walls become essential. Knowing where the shade begins in Rome can be vital for survival.
Andrew Medichini / AP
European cities get it worse than suburbia and rural areas when it comes to heat waves. They get almost twice as many, due to concrete and asphalt soaking up the day’s heat then releasing it at night.
Business_news Elsewhere in the city, fountains provide limited relief. Recently imposed rules now ban people from swimming in them.
Alberto Pizzoli / AFP / Getty
Since late 2018, it has been illegal to bathe human or animal body parts in well-known fountains, like the lion fountains in Piazza del Popolo. People who break these rules can be made to leave the city for two days.
Business_news So tourists need to keep hydrated other ways.
Alberto Pizzoli / AFP / Getty
Business_news In Spain, these men happily soak up the sun at the beach.
Jon Nazca / Reuters
Business_news In the Netherlands, a small pool provides some sort of relief.
Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto / Getty
Business_news Russia is also melting in the heat. Pictured here are people bathing at a beach in St. Petersburg.
Dmitri Lovestky / AP
If beaches aren’t preferable, there’s always the Vuoksi River, filled with islands and rapids, which has water that’s meant to be cleaner than the Gulf of Finland.
Business_news In Moscow, girls cool off by the fountain in front of Ostankino Tower.
Mikhail Tereshchenko / TASS / Getty
Moscow has more than 500 fountains, and some of them are worth a lot of money — one called The Stone Flower Fountain cost $18.6 million to restore.
Business_news This woman is enjoying a fountain in Alexander Garden in Moscow.
Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
Business_news Men in the city take the plunge, leaping off a bridge into the cooling waters of a reservoir.
Artyom Geodakyan / TASS / Getty
Business_news Like Britain, guards in Russia maintain their positions despite the heat. Here, one soldier wipes the sweat off the brow of another.
Sergei Savostyanov / TASS / Getty
Business_news In Greenland, a visitor walks along the hillside above icebergs floating in the Ilulissat Icefjord. Summers are getting longer in Greenland and its icecap is retreating at an accelerated pace.
Sean Gallup / Getty
Eighty-two percent of Greenland is covered by ice, and by July 31, it had hit a record for melting— 56.5% was melted.
Business_news Humpback whales swim next to an iceberg in Greenland. The country’s ice sheet was at a record low in 2012, and it looks like it’ll be heading back that way if the heat continues.
Sean Gallup / Getty
Business_news In Japan, a taxi driver takes a nap in his car to make the most of air conditioning.
Charly Triballeau / AFP / Getty
Business_news In the Shibuya district, in Tokyo, a woman protects herself from the sun with an umbrella.
Charly Triballeau / AFP / Getty
Business_news Other women in Tokyo use portable fans to try and cool off.
Charly Triballeau / AFP / Getty
Some of the highest temperatures were recorded in central Japan, where it reached 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in Gifu Prefecture at the end of July.
Business_news People in Japan have been flocking to the beach this summer. It’s one of the few things people near any coast, no matter the country, can rely on.
Kyodo News / Getty
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Summer 2019
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