ATHENS - Sweating under the brutal Athens sun on a hot August afternoon, Emil Kamenov tugged the armpit of his T-shirt and said, “Smell this.” Particularly exposed as a street person, the 64-year-old was hiding in the shade. With temperatures rising every year, the Greek capital’s homeless do what they can to beat the heat, with help from passersby, charities and the city.
“This year was very bad. Hot days -- dizzy,” said Bulgarian-born Kamenov, who became homeless during the long Greek economic crisis that began in 2009. “When the weather is really bad, I try the trees.
But my spot is here,” he said from a bench with a view of his makeshift bed in a nook in the wall. Greece set several climate milestones this year: its warmest winter, earliest heatwave and warmest June and July on record. The mercury rose to 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) in June, while some areas suffered 40-plus temperatures for more than a week last month.
One of Europe’s hottest capitals, Athens is a densely-populated concrete jungle lacking in green space, making it ill-prepared for heatwaves. The extreme weather is especially hard on the homeless. “Because they live on the street, they are the most vulnerable,” said Myriam Karela, 57, a long-time volunteer social worker with the Hellenic Red Cross.
Climate change only compounds the problem. Scientists say it makes extreme weather events including heatwaves more likely, longer lasting and more intense. “It’s getting .