People's livelihoods and businesses have reeled from record-breaking temperatures in Spain as the extreme heat is gripping large parts of Europe.
More than 100 monitoring stations of the Spanish meteorological agency AEMET registered temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius during the first major heatwave of the year.
June has been confirmed as the country's hottest month on record, with the temperature in the town of El Granado, in the southwestern province of Huelva, reaching 46 degrees Celsius on June 28.
Although heat dome smothering southern Europe is beginning to subside in July, cities that weren't built for this kind of heat have tried to adapt to this new normal.
Fredi, a Colombian immigrant working as a street entertainer, is struggling with the grueling conditions. He has been in Madrid for six months, wearing a gorilla costume and posing for photos in the hope of getting tips, which is his only source of income.
"If it's 40 degrees in the street, then it's 45 or 46 inside the gorilla. I'm stuck inside and it's hard to breathe. You get dehydrated, headaches, nosy and feel like vomiting. I've been here since 8:00 and I've earned maybe five dollars. It's hard. The problem in the heat is that tourists don't come out during the day because of the heatwaves, the sun. I do this for my family to work and survive. Otherwise we'd be on the streets dying of hunger," he said.
Tragically, heat-related fatalities have been reported, including a construction worker in Tarragona and an agricultural worker in Aragon.
This extreme heat could have dire consequences for southern European economies too. A recent Allianz Research report predicts that heatwaves, droughts and wildfires are having far-reaching repercussions and GDP losses in Spain this year could be as much as 1.4 percentage points due to extreme summer heat.
The hospitality industry is feeling the pinch, with reduced tourist activity during the day.
"Madrid is a city with a lot of public space and outdoor leisure and seating, tables in the sun, and all that consumption, particularly in the hottest and harshest hours of the day, from four o'clock in the afternoon to seven o'clock, is practically reduced to zero and is limited only to the interior establishments," Jose Antonio Aparicio from Madrid Hostelry Association.
People's livelihoods, business reel from heatwave in Spain
