In Baghdad, Coping With Heat Made Harder by Power Outages

[Blackaxe]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - As the intense summer heat bears down on them, Iraqis are coping by swimming in the Tigris and sleeping on their roofs. But frequent power outages are testing their almost legendary endurance in the sweltering summer months.

Some in Baghdad have stopped sleeping on their roofs because they fear that U.S. helicopters could mistake them for insurgents. And everyone in the city is coping with power outages that, in Baghdad, currently average 12 hours or more every day.

The outages are the thing that Iraqis single out as the defining evidence of the perceived failure of 14 months of U.S. occupation.

It is not uncommon in Baghdad for temperatures in the shade to hit 120 degrees or higher in July and August. At its peak, normally around 2 p.m., the heat becomes intense. Winds during the two months are called "somoum," or poisons.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB9JB06IWD.html

[acmavm]

1. I have a bad feeling things are going to heat up in more ways than one.

.

[oscar111]

2. Europe 35,000 dead: yet none in iraq?

how is it our media isnt reporting deaths in iraq due to no cooling?
Nor in CA, 2002, during Enron's intentional shutdown of power to boost profits. Nor the great NE blackout last yr.

we heard of europe last summer.. or was it 2 yrs back, when the elderly died in heat wave... and probably not as hot as iraq. All cells , even insects, stop life at 140 degrees.

[Briar]

4. That was Francophobia

Anything to make the French look bad. Elderly people died all over Europe, but the media focused on France, partly because the French had the grace not to hide it, but to be ashamed of it and determined to stop it happening again.

[UpInArms]

3. the heat can be a devastating thing

violence escalates incredibly when people are overheating.