At least 69 people in the Canadian Vancouver area have died in an unprecedented heat wave that engulfed the western part of the country and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, police said Tuesday.
At least 69 people in Canada’s Vancouver area have died in a heat wave
Most of those killed in the Vancouver suburbs of Burnaby and Surrey over the past 24 hours were elderly or people with underlying health problems.
Other local municipalities have said they have also responded to many calls of sudden death since Monday.
“While still under investigation, heat is believed to be a contributing factor in most of the deaths,” RCMP Cpl. Michael Kalanj said in a statement.
Climate change is causing record temperatures to become more frequent. Globally, the decade to 2019 was the hottest on record.
The scorching heat stretching from the U.S. state of Oregon to Canada’s Arctic territories has been attributed to a ridge of high pressure trapping warm air in the region.
On Monday, Canada set a new all-time record high temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.9 degrees Celsius) at Lytton in British Columbia.
And forecasters expected the record to be repeated Tuesday, predicting 120 F heat in western Canada.
Temperatures in the U.S. Pacific Northwest cities of Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington reached levels not seen since record keeping began in the 1940s: 115 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland and 108 in Seattle, according to the National Weather Service.
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