‘World’s hottest city’ where temperatures top 50C and pollution turns air deadly

Global heatwave continues to break record temperatures

Summer has finally landed in Britain — but weather forecasts show it’s not to last for long with wet weather on the way.

This year, countries around the world have endured unprecedented heatwaves.

From Europe to the Americas, the Middle East to Oceania, freak hot weather has landed many in sticky situations.

Death Valley in California recorded one of the official hottest temperatures this year at 55C.

But there is one city that regularly hits the 50+C mark in southern Iran, where its inhabitants have grown used to scorching temperatures.

READ MORE Late Azores heat plume set to send mercury soaring for six days in Britain

Ahvaz first headlines back in 2017 when French meteorological agency MeteoFrance reported that the city had hi 53.7C on the mercury.

At the time, Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at the agency, wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter): “A new absolute national record of reliable Iranian heat.”

The “real heat” index — what the temperature feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature — reached 61.1C.

If accurate, the reading would be one of, if not the hottest temperatures ever measured on Earth in recent history.

It tied with the highest temperature ever recorded in the country, but Ahvaz often hits 50C or slightly higher.

The only other time Iran reached 53C was in 2016, and in 2015, parts of Iran reached a real heat feel of 73.9C because of heavy humidity.

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Ahvaz is one of the most polluted cities in the world, meaning that a combination of impure air and severe heat can mix together to create a cocktail of health hazards.

Most studies indicate that PM2.5 at or below 12 μg/m3 is considered healthy with little to no risk from exposure, while anything at or above 35 μg/m3 is considered severely unhealthy and dangerous.

At the time of writing, PM2.5 is at 159 μg/m3 in Ahvaz, a city of 1.2 million, according to the Real-time Air Quality Index.

The soaring temperature was recorded just after several locations in the Middle East saw some of their hottest temperatures in the month of May during an intense heatwave.

Similar scenes have been seen this year, where a heatwave hitting North Africa and the Middle East has seen issues with electrical supplies and droughts.

While Jordan has seen temperatures in the mid-thirties, Iraq has recorded 49C, and Kuwait saw the mercury rise to 50C at one point.

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