Italy is set to return to the furlough scheme introduced by so many European countries during the COVID pandemic in a bid to deal with the intense summer heatwave. Government officials and trade unionists have revealed special measures are being looked into to help construction and agricultural firms keep staff at home.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's cabinet are set to discuss the return to the furlough scheme on Wednesday Italy's main union, the CGIL, said the proposals did not go far enough.

"Nothing is provided to help people working for delivery firms or seasonal workers, or other categories of employees," it said in a statement.

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Under Italian regulations, companies can apply for temporary lay-offs - usually to deal with a slump in business - for no more than 52 weeks over two years, or 90 days per year in the agricultural sector.

"The measure will be valid for this year," Labor Minister Marina Calderone said.

Italian hospitals in the regions worst hit by soaring temperatures are seeing a jump in heat-related emergencies.

While much of southern Europe has been suffering from extreme heat, in Italy the weather has been even more chaotic, with the south of the country baking in high temperatures and wildfires, while further north there have been tornadoes, violent storms, and, in the most unseasonal incident, 100 people in the Veneto region were injured by hailstones the size of tennis balls.

The heatwave over most of southern Italy has taken a particularly heavy toll on the island of Sicily, which was devastated by wildfires that killed three people.

Catania, near Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, has been hit by power and water supply cuts that local officials blamed in part on the heat.

Italy found itself in the midst of an anticyclone called Cerberus that pushed temperatures beyond 40C.

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