Each year, a world famous hotel is erected using the local ice. However, it shan’t be built in 2020, as there’s not enough.
The internationally-renowned Balea Lake Ice Hotel has been built on the shores of Balea Lake in Romania’s Sibiu County for the past 16 years.
However, due to a warm December at the end of 2019, there’s not enough ice available to build it – despite the fact customers had already booked to stay at the hotel.
It’s another example of climate change in action, as the globe’s ice continues to melt and heat waves grow more intense across the world.
According to local media, the hotel – which is normally constructed at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,561ft) – can’t be built this year because there isn’t enough ice in the lake.
Alexander Uncheshel, a representative from the hotel, said:
This year we won’t be able to build the ice hotel because of the lack of ice. On Tuesday January 7, temperatures of -17C were registered and the thickness of the snow was 166 cm (5.44 feet) so it seems that even if we built the ice hotel it still wouldn’t be as cost-effective as the last couple of years.
Last year it was inaugurated prior to Christmas and we had it running all the way until the Easter holidays.
In order to build the hotel, workers are reportedly required to cut large blocks of ice from the Balea lake with chainsaws. However, due to the fact that December was warm, the lake did not freeze over quickly enough for the hotel’s raw material to exist.
Uncheshel added:
Lots of tourists from many countries all over the world had previously booked apartments in the hotel but I think they’ll have to wait until next winter when we hope to be able to build the ice hotel together with the ice church and igloos we had in previous years.
Scientists believe that global temperatures are set to rise for decades to come as a result of greenhouse gases produced by human behaviour, as per NASA. Over the coming century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
The ricochet effects of this would be more harmful in certain areas than others, but the IPCC noted that ‘net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time’.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.