Extreme Weather Halts Paris-Milan Train Services

Paris: French rail operator SNCF announced that train services on the Paris-Milan route will be suspended for at least several days due to extreme weather conditions. This disruption follows violent thunderstorms in the Maurienne Valley, necessitating a significant clean-up operation.

According to Ansa News Agency, Italy is also grappling with severe weather, including powerful storms and an intense heatwave affecting Europe. On Monday, a man in his 50s drowned when a river overflowed at Bardonecchia near Turin, resulting in severe flooding after heavy rainfall. Additionally, a 47-year-old man, Ait El Hajjam Brahim, succumbed to the extreme heat while working at a construction site in San Lazzaro near Bologna.

Italy has experienced numerous extreme weather events recently, often with devastating and deadly consequences, highlighting the nation’s vulnerability to the climate crisis. Germanwatch’s ‘Climate Risk Index 2025’ report noted that such events resulted in over 765,000 deaths worldwide between 1993 and 2022, including approximately 38,000 in Italy. The report ranked Italy as the fifth-worst-affected country by these climate events, following Dominica, China, Honduras, and Myanmar.

Scientists attribute the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like heatwaves, droughts, storms, and flooding to the climate crisis driven by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The primary source of these emissions is the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal, a practice that continues to yield significant profits for global energy companies.