The heat wave that has stifled Europe this week has barreled eastward, fraying nerves at escalating street protests in Serbia and leaving a river in the Czech Republic clogged with dead fish as the effects of global warming accelerate.
In Albania, across the Adriatic Sea from an Italy still sweltering from exceptionally high temperatures, a routine summer fire at a municipal dump in the central town of Elbasan turned into an out-of-control blaze.
Drained of energy by temperatures that reached 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 Celsius), firefighters struggled to control it. And with clouds of toxic smoke wafting from the dump, protesters gathered outside the Ministry of Tourism and Environment in Tirana, the capital, declaring that it had been renamed “the Ministry of Smoke and Pollution.”
As in Western European countries that were hammered this week by the heat wave, older people in Albania were suffering most. Fatmir Dervishaj, 76, said she usually went out during the day to play dominoes with her friends, but had been stuck at home because of the heat.
“Summer may be joyful for many, but for me, it feels very isolating,” she said.
For others, the misery was good for business. Ermir Metushi, 48, a taxi driver in Tirana, said that the heat wave was “hard to endure” but that it had increased his earnings, because “more and more people are giving in to the comfort of taxi air-conditioning, even for short distances.” That and a summer influx of tourists, he said, “mean that I really can’t complain.”
In the Czech Republic, wildly fluctuating temperatures were blamed for the mass death of fish in the River Thaya in the southeast of the country near Austria. The heat has increased bacteria and sediment that are dangerous for fish, and the authorities in the area, near the city of Breclav, installed pumps to aerate the water. But about 30 tons of fish died this week, starved of oxygen in the river near a hydroelectric plant.
A power outage shut down the Prague subway system and left people trapped in elevators, but it was not immediately clear whether this was related to the heat and the strain placed on the electricity system by increased use of air-conditioners. The electricity company said there had been a fault on a transmission line.
To the south in the Balkans, a region accustomed to hot summers, the authorities issued red-alert heat warnings as parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia struggled with exceptionally high temperatures.
In Belgrade, the Serbian capital, which has been the center of months of antigovernment protests, the heat added to an increasingly tense mood. Nerves frayed as police officers in heavy riot gear struggled to clear streets barricaded by groups of roaming protesters, many of them students. The protests began in November and, after months without violence, have become increasingly confrontational in recent days as temperatures rose and the police started intervening more forcibly.
The heat was even more severe in neighboring Bosnia, with temperatures rising to 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 41 Celsius, in the city of Mostar.
In Sarajevo, the capital, Ermin Hadzic, a 23-year-old student, said his home, like many in the city, did not have air-conditioning and was unbearably hot. “I’m dying,” he said, adding, “I shower 15 times a day with cold water.”
He said he had cut down his consumption of cigarettes and food in an effort to cool down, reducing his breakfast to a single piece of melon because the heat had drained his appetite.
Azra Kalabic, 70, another Sarajevo resident, said the heat was “horrible, especially for us older folks” and for people like her who are chronically ill. “There’s nothing that can help. I rarely go out,” she said. “I feel like I’m suffocating. Everyone only goes out in the evening.”
Poland and the Baltic States to the north experienced some relief on Friday with crisp weather after months of on-off rain, gusty winds and unseasonable cold.
Saulius Zentelis, 56, a lawyer in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, said the “seasons are shifting” because of climate change, noting that summer this year did not start until July after an “unusually cold and rainy” June. But, he added, “I can’t stand the heat” and “actually like the cooler weather.”
After rising to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius) on Thursday, the temperature in Vilnius fell sharply on Friday. Temperatures in neighboring Poland also dropped, with Warsaw at 69 Fahrenheit (21 Celsius).
In Montenegro, cafe owners lamented a sharp fall in income as customers stayed at home.
Mladja Djukic, 54, the owner of a cafe in Podgorica, the capital, said that the “heat has become so unbearable, even in the evenings, that most people either stay home with the air-conditioning on or head to the beach.”
Some in Eastern Europe, however, said they could not understand the fuss. “It’s summer! It’s supposed to be hot,” said Mersida Hadzimuratovic, 59, a nurse in Sarajevo. “I don’t mind. I like summer the best anyway.”
Emma Bubola contributed reporting from Rome, Sara Cincurova from Bratislava, Slovakia, and Alisa Dogramadzieva from Podgorica, Montenegro.
Andrew Higgins is the East and Central Europe bureau chief for The Times based in Warsaw. He covers a region that stretches from the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Kosovo, Serbia and other parts of former Yugoslavia.
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