Extreme heat kills in Greece and South Korea, a Hungarian nuclear plant at risk

Two continents, the same emergency. In Greece, wildfires have caused five deaths in the past two weeks, in an environmental crisis described as among the worst of the decade by those closely monitoring the phenomenon.

One of the worst wildfire crises — Theodore Giannaros, wildfire meteorologist

More than 500 firefighters, supported by several helicopters, are working to contain the blaze in the western Attica region, near Athens. The combination of high temperatures and wind is making it difficult to contain the flames in one of the country’s most densely populated areas.

In Hungary the emergency has taken a different but related form: the level of the Danube has hit a record low, bringing the country close to a forced shutdown of its only nuclear power plant. This was stated by Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who stressed how directly the drought is affecting the country’s energy infrastructure, not only agriculture or river tourism.

On the other side of the planet, South Korea is recording its own toll from extreme heat: at least 21 deaths linked to high temperatures, which have reached peaks of 42.5 degrees Celsius. Authorities have issued extraordinary alerts for Seoul and canceled ten professional baseball games. In Yangsan, thermometers have exceeded 40 degrees for the fifth consecutive day, while Daegu and Busan have recorded values close to that threshold.

The two episodes — the European and the South Korean one — are not linked by any confirmed common cause in the available sources, but they share the same trait: temperatures systematically exceeding seasonal averages, putting pressure on infrastructure (a nuclear power plant in Hungary), public activities (baseball in Korea) and human lives (the five Greek deaths, the twenty-one South Korean ones).

Authorities in both countries have responded with emergency measures — the mobilization of firefighters in Greece, alerts and event cancellations in South Korea — but none of the sources indicate, for now, a forecast on when temperatures might return to normal. The most concrete figure remains that of the twenty-one South Korean deaths and the five Greek deaths, numbers that the respective governments have made public in recent hours.