Barcelona introduces heat alert wristbands

Amid successive heatwaves that caused more than 1,000 excess deaths in Spain during June, Barcelona has begun introducing wristbands that monitor outdoor workers' body temperature and act as an early warning system for health risks, Reuters reports.

The city has distributed around 1,400 wristbands to employees who work outdoors, including street cleaners, public lighting workers, park maintenance staff, and sanitation workers, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

The initiative is part of an effort to adapt to increasingly severe climate change, according to Pep Llimona, prevention coordinator for the city's parks and gardens department.

The wristbands measure workers' body temperature and emit a sound and vibration if they detect that the wearer is at risk. When this happens, the worker must stop working immediately.

Several outdoor workers have died in Spain in recent years due to extreme heat, prompting changes to their working conditions and schedules.

In Barcelona, a 51-year-old woman died in June last year after sweeping streets in the city's old quarter while temperatures reached 30.4°C (86.7°F).

At the time, Barcelona's city council said it would investigate the woman's death. A municipal spokesperson said on Thursday that there is no evidence that heatstroke was the cause of her death.

According to Pep Llimona, the plan to introduce heat-monitoring wristbands had already been underway before the woman's death.

"However, it is true that it helped speed up the process and made us think about it more carefully," he said.

Like many European countries, Spain has struggled with extreme heat in recent weeks, and the national weather service AEMET recorded the highest temperature ever registered for the month of June. Another heatwave is expected to affect the country this weekend.

"As it gets hotter and hotter, we need to be more vigilant at work," said team leader Ester Jimenez.

Photo: Chat Gpt