New heat wave in Morocco, 21 deaths in 24 hours

Twenty-one people died in 24 hours in the urban area of ​​Beni Mellal, in central Morocco, cause of a new heat wave having hit the country, prey to à its sixth consecutive year of drought, said Thursday the Ministry of Health.

The General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM) announced a strong heat wave from Monday to Wednesday in several localities, with temperatures reaching up to 48°C, notably in Beni Mellal.

In this city located more than 200 km southeast of Casablanca, where the thermometer still showed around 43 degrees on Thursday, 21 people died on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Cheers.

“The majority of deaths concern people suffering from chronic illnesses and the elderly, the high temperatures having contributed to the deterioration of their state of health and led to their death,” the regional health directorate said in a press release.

The Ministry of Health announced measures to counter the effects of heat, in particular establishing “permanent hours within health establishments in regions affected by rising temperatures “, in addition to the mobilization of health professionals and “the provision of medicines and hospital equipment”.

The ministry was not in a position to immediately indicate whether this was the heaviest death toll recorded after a heat wave in the country.

According to the weather forecast, temperatures are expected to drop in the coming days. In Marrakech (south), where they reached 45 degrees on Thursday, they should drop by 10 degrees on Sunday, according to the DGM.

– Economic impact –

Not far from the al-Massira dam in the village of Ouled Essi Masseoud south of Casablanca, August 8, 2022 © AFP – FADEL SENNA

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Morocco had already recorded heat records this winter, with the hottest month of January recorded in the kingdom since 1940 (nearly 37°C in places), according to the DGM.

The European Copernicus network predicted that daily records would be exceeded this summer in the northern hemisphere and that the planet would endure a particularly long period of extreme heat due to climate change.

Climate change is causing longer, stronger and more frequent extreme weather events like heat waves and flooding.

In Morocco , rising temperatures also threaten dam reserves. Water evaporation has reached “one and a half million cubic meters per day”, declared Water Minister Nizar Baraka at the end of June.

The drought is also already having effects on the agricultural sector, essential to the national economy since it employs a third of the population and represents 14% of exports, more profitable than the local market.

The High Planning Commission (HCP) noted in May that “the labor market situation continues to be affected by the drought” and reported that the unemployment rate had increased from 12.9 % to 13.7% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

World temperature record © AFP – Source AFP

Some 159,000 jobs in the agricultural sector disappeared over this period, bringing the total number of unemployed people to more than 1.6 million in the country, which has 37 million inhabitants.< /p>

The national maximum temperature record was recorded in August 2023 in Agadir (south) with 50.4°C.

Globally, Monday July 22 was the hottest day on record since records began in 1940, Copernicus said on Wednesday, breaking a record set the day before.

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