SYDNEY — Australia’s national weather agency on Saturday warned of extreme to severe heatwave conditions over northern parts of the country through Sunday.

A lower-intensity heatwave is expected for much of the east coast starting Tuesday.

The heatwaves continue the scorching start of summer in Australia. In early December, a heatwave warning affected areas in every state and territory, with the exception of Tasmania.

Weather is considered a heatwave when the maximum and minimum temperatures are unusually hot over three days.

Local councils in Sydney are setting up heat shelters to help residents escape the punishing conditions. Temperatures in Australia’s largest city already have exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

“In Western Sydney … the temperatures in the last 10, 20 years in particular have been increasing substantially,” said Tony Bleasdale, mayor of Blacktown, which is in Sydney’s western suburbs.

Blacktown has set up shelters in libraries and other council buildings.

“It is about saving lives,” Bleasdale said. “It is about protecting the community. …  So many people lose their lives because of the increases in these temperatures.”

Indeed, authorities say the scorching heat is a silent killer, and high energy prices are making it difficult to find relief.

“The cost of electricity here in Sydney is exorbitant, and so we have people who are struggling … sitting in cold baths because that is the only way they can get cool,” Christine Bayliss Kelly, a Uniting Church minister in the Sydney suburb of Penrith, told VOA.

“They cannot afford, even if they had it, air conditioning,” she said.

The El Nino weather pattern is helping fuel the extreme heat, experts say, and climate change will make heatwaves more frequent and intense.

Politicians, environmental activists and scientists are concerned about the increasing number of natural disasters in the country. While northeastern Australia is cleaning up after this week’s record-breaking rainfall, other parts of the country have been battling bushfires.

Australia’s left-leaning government has legislated a target to cut carbon emissions by 43% from 2005 levels by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
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