Residents of the Canadian town of Lytton were forced to evacuate due to record temperatures that suddenly surrounded the town in flames.
Mayor Jan Polderman spoke about the evacuation on Wednesday evening, the Canadian national program CBC reports.
– It’s horrible. The whole town is on fire. It took about 15 minutes from the first sign of smoke until there was a sudden fire everywhere, he says.
In the past three days, a heat record has been set at Lytton. On Tuesday, it was measured at 49.5 degrees, the highest temperature on record in Canada.
The city is located 26 miles northeast of Vancouver in western Canada. Many residents had to flee in a hurry, leaving their belongings behind.
It’s so hot that a lot of people are not sure what to do with themselves:
Cost hundreds of lives
Authorities estimate that the heat wave that hit Canada and the US states of Oregon and Washington has claimed hundreds of lives.
With temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees, a doubling of what is otherwise normal, many unexpected deaths have been reported, linked to the heat wave of recent days.
Also read: Almost 50 degrees – over 100 sudden deaths
Chief pathologist Lisa Lapointe of the Canadian province of British Columbia said Wednesday that 486 sudden and unexpected deaths were reported from Friday to Wednesday. Normally, around 165 people will die in five days in the province.
“While it is too early to say for sure how many of these deaths are due to heat, it is believed that the significant increase in reported deaths can be attributed to extreme weather conditions,” Lapointe said in a statement.
Poorly equipped
Many homes in the northern parts of the United States and Canada do not have air conditioning and are therefore poorly equipped against the unexpected heatwave.
In Oregon, 60 heat-related deaths have been reported, and in Washington, a dozen deaths have been reported so far, a number that is expected to increase.
Among the dead, aged 44 to 97, it is estimated that hyperthermia – that is, the body becomes too hot – was the cause in at least 45 of the cases. In Oregon, previously, from 2017 to 2019, only 12 cases of hyperthermia were recorded.
“The temperatures measured this week are unexpected – lives have been lost and the risk of forest fires is dangerously high,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday.
(© NTB)
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