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People cool off under an open-air shower in Baghdad as temperatures soar. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

While Europe does battle with a heatwave named Lucifer, the Middle East is enduring a summer so brutal that even those accustomed to Baghdads searing August are labelling it ungodly.

As temperatures rose towards 51C on Thursday, Iraqs government declared a mandatory holiday, allowing civic servants to shelter at home.

So far this month in the Iraqi capital, every day but one has reached 48C or higher, and the forecast is for the high temperatures to continue for the next week. July was little different, in Iraq and in Syria, where the capital, Damascus, has also been several degrees hotter than usual nearly every day since late June.

In Kuwait, where birds have reportedly dropped from the skies, and Riyadh, where building work has ceased this week, locals have called for mercy from a hotter-than-normal air mass that has remained nearly stationary over central Arabia for more than three weeks, stretching the capacity of electricity networks beyond limits.

While the centre of the region is being scorched, on the Mediterranean coast Beirut and Istanbul have also been blighted by a cruel summer in their cases, extreme humidity that has made comparatively modest daytime temperatures seem far higher.

In Baghdad, the perennially under-funded state power network has again failed to cope with the annual onslaught, as demand for power for air conditioners and water coolers far exceeds the capacity to supply it.

We had the day off today, said Mohanad, from central Baghdad. The heat is ungodly. The generator in my neighbourhood that provides electricity for about 300 houses has caught fire from the heat. All it generates is smoke. We dont know what to do. Men can go to the pool here but what do we do with our women, elderly and our babies? Even the ACs in the car arent working properly. Its over 53 degrees today.

Its disgusting. The government cannot do anything to help us even if they tried; the electricity generators were built in the 1960s and havent been changed or modified since. They cant stand against this heat. We are a poor folk, the Iraqis, its hell, its misery. Do not be surprised if you hear on the news about people dying from the heat. Weve never witnessed such a summer before.

Salam al-Saade, from the eastern suburb of Mashtal, said: The heat is unbearable. Everyone around me is so sick of it. We are going to the pool and sending our kids there from the morning till night-time to cool off a little. A lot of people are suffering from headaches. The government is not going to help us in any way. We get 12 hours of national electricity a day but it is not consecutive. It comes for two hours then cuts off. When it does cut off we generate our own and pay for it. This year is the worst weve seen.

In Lebanon, Faysal al-Banna, the chief of ground observation for Beiruts meteorological department said: We definitely do not have it as bad as Iraq and other places. Today it is 30 degrees but we feel its much hotter because of the humidity. Its the humidity from hell, its on fire this year. I guarantee you the next few days will be worse.

Additional reporting by Nadia al-Faour

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Iraq sends workers home as 'ungodly' heat grips Middle East - The Guardian