UK commuters worse than cattle with no ac

EUROPE: As temperatures soared across Europe last week, commuters were some of the worst affected due to malfunctioning or non-existent air conditioning.

While London tube travellers might claim to have suffered most from a lack of air conditioning during the hottest week of the year, fellow commuters across Europe fared little better.

Temperatures during the Wednesday evening rush hour on the tube were measured measured at 34.8ºC and a humidity of 45% on the Central Line at Oxford Circus.

According to the Evening Standard website, London bus passengers fared even worse with temperatures on some services hitting 35.5ºC on the top deck – more than 5ºC hotter than the maximum 30ºC limit allowed for transporting cattle.

Air conditioning is being installed on London’s underground but although he number of air conditioned tube trains will have more than trebled by 2016, it will still only cover 40% of the network. Currently, two thirds of London’s 6,100 double decker buses have upper-deck cooling systems.

In Germany, last weekend, malfunctioning air conditioners stopped three inter-city trains and eleven school children collapsed when the air conditions failed on a coach near Leverkusen.

Meanwhile, In Russia, a plane of Russian airline Rossiya was forced to return to Perm airport due to a failure of the air conditioning system a few minutes after takeoff.

At the other end of the temperature spectrum, a worker in Vietnam survived after five days trapped in a cold store. The folklift truck driver was found alive on Wednesday after being trapped in the cold store at temperatures of -20C.