Record heat wave
The week's news at a glance.
Budapest
Hundreds of people across southeastern Europe died this week in a brutal heat wave. Hungary logged a record high 107 degrees, and officials said about 500 people, mostly elderly, had died from the heat. In Bulgaria, the temperature soared to 113 degrees, also a record. Serbia lost almost one-third of its crops. Romania declared a state of emergency after 19,000 people were admitted to hospitals suffering from heat stroke. In Greece and Macedonia, forest fires blazed out of control, igniting bombs and ammunition that had been buried in the ground since World War I. Many areas across the region have lost electricity because power lines are overloaded from the nonstop use of air conditioners.
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