{"id":37889,"date":"2026-08-04T17:59:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/37889\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T17:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:59:15","slug":"italy-puts-all-major-cities-on-highest-alert-as-heatwave-intensifies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/37889\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy puts all major cities on highest alert as heatwave intensifies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">ROME, Aug 4 (Reuters) &#8211; Italy is placing all its 27 major cities under its highest heat alert \u200con Thursday, as the country&#8217;s fourth heatwave of \u200cthe summer intensifies, the health ministry said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Twenty-five cities were put \u200bon red alert on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the only two currently on a lesser amber alert, Messina and Reggio Calabria in the far south of the country, moving \u200cup to the \u2060maximum level on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A red alert indicates a potential health emergency with prolonged high temperatures \u2060posing a serious health risk to the entire population, including young and healthy people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Local authorities urged residents in affected areas \u200bto avoid \u200bexposure to heat and \u200bdirect sunlight during the hottest \u200chours of the day, between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., stay indoors where possible and drink plenty of fluids.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A spokesperson at the health ministry said it was the first time this year that all 27 cities had \u200cbeen issued with a red alert, \u200bbut could not confirm if this \u200bhad ever happened \u200bin previous years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Temperatures have climbed to 40 degrees \u200cCelsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some \u200bareas of \u200bItaly and little relief is expected before the weekend. Forecasters say the heatwave is being fuelled by a \u200bNorth African anticyclone \u200cthat has strengthened over the Mediterranean and stretched \u200bacross much of Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and \u200bAlvise ArmelliniEditing by Keith Weir)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROME, Aug 4 (Reuters) &#8211; Italy is placing all its 27 major cities under its highest heat alert&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25247,11367,14319,5,4108,14742],"class_list":["post-37889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-amber-alert","tag-health-ministry","tag-heatwave","tag-italy","tag-major-cities","tag-red-alert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}