Italy's highest heat alert reaches all 27 cities, including the South

Italy is to place all of its 27 major cities, from Trieste in the north to Palermo in the south, under the highest heat alert as the fourth heatwave to hit the country this summer intensifies, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.

The red alert comes as temperatures in some areas edge close to 40C, according to the Guardian. The measure covers every major urban centre in the country, an unusually broad application of the alert system that signals the severity of the current spell.

For the southern regions, the heat arrives at a moment of particular vulnerability. Molise, the smallest region by population with roughly 289,000 residents, has one of the oldest demographic profiles in Italy, a consequence of decades of youth emigration that the foreign press has repeatedly documented.

The Guardian's report noted that this is the fourth heatwave of the summer, with the alert level now at its maximum across all major cities simultaneously. The BBC, in a separate guide published this week, quoted experts recommending night-time tours and supermarket visits as strategies to cope with the conditions, advice aimed at tourists but equally relevant to residents of the scorched interior.

In Molise, the practical consequences of the heat are compounded by the region's demographic structure. Foreign coverage of Italian depopulation has long noted that the South's remaining population skews elderly, with young people leaving for work in the north or abroad. A heatwave of this intensity places the greatest strain on exactly those communities with the least capacity to adapt — villages where the average age climbs year after year and where air conditioning remains a luxury in older stone housing.

The health ministry's red alert system, which the Guardian reports now covers all 27 major cities, is designed to flag days when heat poses a risk to the vulnerable. For the smaller centres of the deep South, no such formal alert exists, yet the conditions are no less severe. The wire coverage focuses on the major urban centres, but the inland regions of the South face the same temperatures with fewer resources to mitigate them.

The immediate outlook offers little relief. The Guardian's report indicates the heatwave is intensifying rather than abating, with the red alert expected to remain in force as the summer's fourth hot spell reaches its peak. For the elderly populations of regions like Molise, the coming days will test both the public health infrastructure and the informal networks of family and neighbours that have long sustained these communities.

The BBC's practical guide, published Tuesday, offered a glimpse of how Italians are adapting — shifting activity to cooler evening hours, seeking out air-conditioned public spaces, and adjusting the rhythms of daily life. In the crowded cities of the north these adaptations are visible; in the emptying villages of the south, they are a matter of quieter survival.