MADRID, Aug 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Spain’s death toll from a particularly
virulent heatwave rose to nine, authorities said Tuesday, as the country
suffers sky-high temperatures.
A 66-year-old man who died on Thursday in the southwestern region of
Extremadura near Portugal was found to have died of heat stroke, a spokesman
for the regional health department told AFP.
A 75-year-old woman who died two days later also succumbed to heat stroke,
he added.
This brings to nine the total of people to have died as a direct
consequence of the heatwave.
A 40-year-old German man who was on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage also
died from heat stroke in Extremadura, as did an 81-year-old man.
Parts of the region registered temperatures of 44 degrees Celsius (111
degrees Fahrenheit) at the weekend.
Over in the northeast in Catalonia, three homeless men have died.
Two other men — a roadworker in his 40s and a 78-year-old pensioner
tending to his vegetable garden — also passed away from heatstroke last
week.