An Iraqi street vendor protecting his head from the blazing sun with a piece of cardboard (above) during a heatwave in the capital Baghdad on Friday, while another man makes use of a kerbside shower to cool off.

Iraq's notorious summer calls for its own routines: Football matches are interrupted with obligatory water breaks and working hours are changed as businesses open and close later to take advantage of the cooler evenings.

But even by its own standards, this June has been a sizzler - averaging a daily 48 deg C compared with around 40 deg C in previous years.

Baghdad residents shutter themselves away during the searing afternoons, then re-emerge around midnight or later for a belated dinner in the manageable 35 deg C heat. Inside, they crank up air-conditioning units, putting extra strain on the country's dilapidated power grid and causing the outages that sparked massive protests last year.

In Dhi Qar, a province south of Baghdad, the cuts have hit public hospitals, said provincial health chief Abdel Hassan al-Jaberi. "People are hesitating to come to the hospital because the electricity is cut 17 times per day," he said.