Heat wave across the US north west kills over a dozen people

Kids cool off in Richmond, British Columbia as western Canada and parts of western USA bake in an unprecedented heat wave. Pic/AFP

About a dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon may be tied to an intense heat wave that brought scorching temperatures to the Northwest and caused one power utility to impose rolling blackouts amid heavy demand.

The dangerous weather that gave Seattle and Portland consecutive days of record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celsius) eased in those cities on Tuesday. But inland Spokane, towns in eastern Oregon and cities in Idaho saw temperatures spike.

The National Weather Service said the mercury reached 109 F (42.2 C) in Tuesday in Spokane - the highest temperature ever recorded there.

About 9,300 Avista Utilities customers in Spokane lost power on Monday and the company said more planned blackouts began on Tuesday afternoon in the city of about 220,000 people.

The authorities said multiple recent deaths in the region were possibly related to the scorching weather. The King County Medical Examiner's office said two people died due to hyperthermia, meaning their bodies had became dangerously overheated. The Seattle Times reported they were a 65-year-old Seattle woman and a 68-year-old Enumclaw, Washington, woman.

And the Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office on Tuesday told the Daily Herald in Everett, Washington, that three men - ages 51, 75 and 77 - died after experiencing heat stroke in their homes.

The heat may have claimed the life of a worker on a nursery in Oregon, the state's worker safety agency, known as Oregon OSHA, said on Tuesday.

The man who died was from Guatemala and had apparently arrived in the United States only a few months ago, said Andres Pablo Lucas, owner of Brother Farm Labor Contractor that provided workers for the nursery.

President Joe Biden, during an infrastructure speech in Wisconsin, took note of the Northwest as he spoke about the need to be prepared for extreme weather. "Anybody ever believe you'd turn on the news and see it's 116 degrees in Portland, Oregon? 116 degrees," the president said, taking a dig at those who cast doubt on the reality of climate change. "But don't worry - there is no global warming because it's just a figment of our imaginations." The heat wave was caused by what meteorologists described as a dome of high pressure over the Northwest and worsened by human-caused climate change, which is making such extreme weather events more likely and more intense.

46°c
Temperature in Portland, Oregon

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