As temperatures across the Balkans soar into the 40s, in the most severe heatwave in 50 years, Kosovo's painfully slow reconstruction is being hindered by lack of power, intermittent water supplies, forest fires and exploding chemical storage tanks.
In the violent and ethnically split province of the former Yugoslavia, one factor common to Kosovan Albanians, NATO peacekeepers, UN staff and Serbs and other ethnic minorities is the scorching heat.
Temperatures this week across south-east Europe have been as high as 45 as a high-pressure area gripping the region has trapped hot air coming in from the Middle East and the Sahara.
Kosovo is suffering particularly extreme problems because the rebuilding of the province is in its infancy: power stations do not function, water-supply systems are damaged and decrepit, the electrical network is prone to failures.
"We've got very little electricity," said EU spokesman Mr Christian Lindmeier in Pristina, where temperatures this week have reached 42 degrees. "There are faults and breakdowns at power stations," he said. "We're trying to import power from other countries, but from Romania, for example, they'd have to restart a nuclear power station just to send power here."
Some areas of Pristina had electricity for only two hours per day, leading to a total lack of water as electric pumps could not function.
"We've actually found one street in Pristina that has not had water for 21 days," said LieutCol James Murray-Playfair, of Britain's Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
Outside the south-eastern Kosovan town of Gnjilane, extreme temperatures caused a 100-pound tank of chlorine to explode, releasing clouds of poisonous fumes that UN and NATO firefighters struggled to contain.
NATO peacekeeping troops, who despite scorching temperatures have to patrol in full combat gear, were being ordered to drink large amounts of water, take salt tablets, and be aware of the danger of dehydration. "In this absolute heat, heat-exhaustion and dehydration is a killer problem," said one officer.
Despite the heat, Kosovo's particular brand of security problems persisted, highlighted this week by the experience of one electronic retailer in Pristina who opened up a computer that had been brought in for repair only to find four hand-grenades inside.
Meanwhile, UN police in Pristina were called to remove a crowd of some 1,200 Kosovan Albanians from the Grmija municipal swimming-pool outside the city after they started paddling and splashing in a mixture of water and chemicals pumped into the pool prior to it being filled. "They were," said one UN official, "just swimming in chlorine."
Forest fires raged across three sectors of Kosovo after high winds and high temperatures ignited woods, bushes and scrub. Kosovan Albanian farmers hosed down their cattle to lower their temperatures. The normally crowded streets of Pristina were half-deserted by the middle of the day, as the local and international population took refuge indoors.
Meteorologists in Greece and Turkey have predicted that the heatwave will continue into next week.
AFP adds:
Mr Ramush Haradinaj, a former senior commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army and now head of the political party, Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, has been injured in an attack, a Kfor spokesman said yesterday.
Maj Scott Slaten of the US army said the influential ethnic Albanian politician had been injured in the west of the province and taken by helicopter to the US military base at Camp Bondsteel for hospital treatment.