Athens: seven air-conditioned clubs open for the heatwave

The Municipality of Athens has put its services on full alert because of the very high temperatures affecting the Attica basin. From Sunday 23 August, and for as long as necessary, seven Friendship Clubs are operating as air-conditioned spaces from 9am to 9pm. They are the Agios Pavlos club, at the corner of Mamouri 22 and Dymis streets; the Neos Kosmos club, known as I Analipsi tou Kyriou, at Cheldreich 15; the Votanikos club, at Kozanis 4; the Kolokynthous club, at the corner of Aimonos 9 and Astrous; the Agios Eleftherios club, at Acharnon 372; the Kypseli club, at the corner of Skyrou and Kavkasou; and the Ampelokipoi club, at the corner of Panormou and Vatheos. The seven venues are spread across different municipal communities, from Votanikos and Kolokynthous in the west to Kypseli and Ampelokipoi in the centre and north of the city.

Alongside the cooling spaces, the Municipality is keeping two telephone lines open. The Citizen Service Line operates around the clock on 1595 and 210 5287800, while the Heatwave Line of the Multipurpose Municipal Clinics answers on 210 3638049, from 8:30am to 7:30pm. The Municipal Police are monitoring green spaces and high-risk areas, using ground patrols as well as unmanned aircraft, so that any outbreak of fire is spotted early at a time when vegetation is extremely dry. The Friendship Clubs are generally aimed at elderly residents and operate year-round as social gathering spaces; during the heatwave they operate with extended hours as cooling spaces.

The remaining measures affect the daily routine of workers and residents. The Municipality’s outdoor crews are withdrawn from 11:00 to 17:00, the hours of greatest heat stress. Residents are asked not to put rubbish in bins between 11am and 5pm, to reduce the risk of fire and odours. Streetwork teams operate from 9am to 9pm to protect homeless people, while the Urban Fauna service has placed more than 130 water troughs for stray animals around the city.

The measures coincide with a spell of persistent heat across the whole region. In Western Attica the temperature reached as high as 39 degrees Celsius on Monday 24 August and was expected to reach up to 38 degrees on Tuesday 25 August, with north winds. The heatwave had already begun the previous weekend, when the mercury in Attica had climbed to 38 degrees. The Municipality’s announcements do not specify an end date for the measures, saying they will remain in force for as long as the high temperatures persist, nor do they clarify whether additional air-conditioned spaces will open in other municipal communities. In Kypseli, one of the Municipality’s densely populated areas where a cooling space is operating, shade options in public spaces are limited. The announcements do not say how many citizens have used the spaces or whether any cases of heatstroke have been recorded.