Multiple people were killed in a house fire in Chestermere, Alberta, on Friday. Photo:AP
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | JULY 3rd 2021
According to scientists, the dramatic heatwaves tearing through the United States and Canada may only be the beginning of a much bigger crisis as no country, globally, is safe from these kinds of heating events.
The vicious “heat dome” that had recently formed over the Western continent led to temperatures spiking up to and over 50 degrees Celsius, causing hundreds of deaths and leading to the melting of power lines across the countries. Deadly wildfires have also been on the rise as a result.
The village of Lytton, in Canada’s British Columbia, had recently been nearly entirely burned down by a wildfire. According to local MPs, the village had previously been known as the place where the highest temperature in Canada had been recorded.
“There won't be very much left of Lytton,” said Jan Polderman, the mayor of Lytton who was lucky to have escaped the burning village with his own life. “There was fire everywhere.”
According to experts, as such harsh conditions spread and global temperatures rise to higher degrees, the threat of extreme weather events become more likely all around the world. All global societies will eventually have to prepare for similar conditions to those being felt in the Western US and Canada right now.
“The risks have been understood and known for so long and we have not acted, now we have a very narrow timeline for us to manage the problem,” said the former UK chief scientific adviser, Sir David King.
He added that: “Nowhere is safe … who would have predicted a temperature of 48/49C in British Columbia?”
King stated that scientists had been warning the world about the climate crisis for several decades now, and time was beginning to run short for people to start properly taking action and tackle the problem at hand.
Over a dozen deaths are currently being investigated in the US states of Oregon and Washington, suspected of being linked with the dangerously high temperatures. The situation may be worse in Canada, where 486 deaths had been reported over the course of five days in British Columbia alone.
“While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather BC has experienced and continues to impact many parts of our province,” said the chief coroner Lisa Lapointe.
