The Times of London: Autumn heatwave triggers a crimewave as drunken Aussies get hot and bothered

Sydney's leading emergency surgeon yesterday said that the city's five-week heatwave had triggered mass brawls as Australians drank more and became increasingly intolerant and badtempered.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Police tackled Sydney's largest street brawl in a decade as 200 People started fighting when they poured out of the city's pubs and clubs. In Melbourne, more than 100 youths began a rampage late on Satursay night.

The temperature in Sydney exceeded 28C (82.4F) on Saturday, the 37th censecutive day of unusually hot and humid autumn weather. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said that the first three days of March - when the heatwave began - waere each hotter than any previous March day on record. Professor Gordian Fulde, head of the accident and emergency department at St Vincent's, Sydney's largest inner-City Hospital said: "Almost certainly the heat makes People crankier and hot-headed."

"I suspect alcohol sales were also up this Weekend as there were so many patients, day and night, in emergency with alcohol-related misadvantures."

Scores of Police converged on Sydney's central Business district, struggling to control outbreaks of violence which they attributed to heavy drinking. Assistant commissioner Mick Fuller of the New South Wales Police said: "We want to see People out having fun but we are extremely concerned by the Level of intoxication we are seeing in some People every night."

Extra Police are to be deployed in the central City as a result of the brawls.

Don Weatherburn, the New South Wales official crime statistician, said there was no doubt that there was a correlation between hot weather and street violence.

"Assaults are much more prevalent in summer," he said. "What we don't know is whether that is because of the heat or whether People drink more in summer. But summer is much worse for violence than winter.

The unprecedented series of hot days in Sydney has already led to what scientists have said is an extraordinary increase in the numbers of Spiders and other insects in urban Areas because the Extended summer has multiplied breeding cycles.

Relief is finally in sight. Forecasters have said that temperatures will drop in Sydney early this week when storms hit the city.


Fazit: Der Klimawandel begünstigt den Suff.