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SCHOOL

Spanish school kids seek heat relief… in funeral home

It's hot in Spain, so much so that over-heated students near Madrid were transferred from their school to a cooler place... which turned out to be the local air-conditioned funeral home.

Spanish school kids seek heat relief... in funeral home
File photo of schoolkids in Spain: AFP

The unusual decision is just one of several measures taken in recent days as the country goes through a heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40C (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some places including the Spanish capital.

SEE ALSO: Temperatures reach up to 42C in Spanish heatwave

A spokesman for emergency services in the region told AFP that dozens of “students aged 12 to 18 were transferred to a place close to their school, an air-conditioned funeral home” in Valdemoro near Madrid on Thursday.

The reason? Extreme heat.

“Five students had been taken to hospital, one for heatstroke, the others because they were nervous” due to the heat, the spokesman said.

The school year in Spain ends before the end of June – earlier than in other European countries – due to the summer heat.

But with temperatures hitting record highs, controversy is growing over public schools' lack of readiness for scorching heat, hit as they were by spending cuts during the financial crisis.

The Feuso education union has asked that class ends at midday on days of heatwave, when it says school buildings turn into “saunas.”

Madrid's regional authorities, meanwhile, have allowed establishments to “shorten school days.”

And Jesus Sanchez Martos, a doctor in charge of health issues at the Madrid regional government, suggested students make their own paper fans – a proposal that earned him much criticism.

But it's not just the notoriously roasting Madrid region that is suffering.

In Murcia in the southeast, Antonio Leon, mayor of the town of Torre Pacheco, has called for school buildings themselves to be better conceived.

“Yesterday, a three-year-old suffered from heat stroke and emergency doctors were called in,” he told AFP.

He said the temperature had reached 33.3C in the classroom, in a concrete building.

By law, the temperature in classrooms should be between 17C and 27C, according to the Feuso union.

Leon said air conditioning was the obvious answer, but “another cheaper solution would be to put up awnings that would protect from the radiation of the sun.”

On Friday, Spain's Energy Minister Alvaro Nadal promised to implement a programme to “better insulate” public schools.

WEATHER

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

Blizzards in Denmark this week have resulted in the greatest depth of snow measured in the country for 13 years.

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

A half-metre of snow, measured at Hald near East Jutland town Randers, is the deepest to have occurred in Denmark since January 2011, national meteorological agency DMI said.

The measurement was taken by the weather agency at 8am on Thursday.

Around 20-30 centimetres of snow was on the ground across most of northern and eastern Jutland by Thursday, as blizzards peaked resulting in significant disruptions to traffic and transport.

A much greater volume of snow fell in 2011, however, when over 100 centimetres fell on Baltic Sea island Bornholm during a post-Christmas blizzard, which saw as much as 135 centimetres on Bornholm at the end of December 2010.

READ ALSO: Denmark’s January storms could be fourth extreme weather event in three months

With snowfall at its heaviest for over a decade, Wednesday saw a new rainfall record. The 59 millimetres which fell at Svendborg on the island of Funen was the most for a January day in Denmark since 1886. Some 9 weather stations across Funen and Bornholm measured over 50cm of rain.

DMI said that the severe weather now looks to have peaked.

“We do not expect any more weather records to be set in the next 24 hours. But we are looking at some very cold upcoming days,” DMI meteorologist and press spokesperson Herdis Damberg told news wire Ritzau.

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