LONDON — A fierce heat wave left western
Europe sweltering on Tuesday, fuelling ferocious wildfires and stretching emergency
services, as it swept north and pushed temperatures in Britain over 40°C for
the first time.
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After the
UK’s warmest night on record, the
Met Office said 40.2°C had been provisionally recorded by lunchtime at Heathrow
Airport, in west London, taking the country into uncharted territory.
Britain’s previous all-time temperature
record of 38.7°C, set in Cambridge in eastern England in 2019, had already been
smashed earlier Tuesday.
“For the first time ever, 40°C has
provisionally been exceeded in the UK,” the Met Office meteorological agency
said, warning “temperatures are still climbing in many places”.
Experts blame climate change for the latest
heat wave and note the more frequent extreme weather will only worsen in years
to come.
The high temperatures have triggered an
unprecedented red alert for extreme heat in much of
England, where some rail
lines were closed as a precaution and schools shuttered in some areas.
All trains were canceled from London’s
usually busy Kings Cross station, leaving many travelers stranded.
“It’s a little frustrating,” said American
tourist Deborah Byrne, trying to reach Scotland.
But with road surfaces and runways melting
and rails buckling, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps conceded much of Britain’s
infrastructure “is just not built for this temperature”.
Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the
charity WaterAid, said the situation should be “the wake-up call the world
needs to stop climate change from claiming any more lives”.
Wildfires
In
France, towns and cities in the country’s west registered their highest-ever
temperatures Monday, the national weather office said.
The western region of Brittany — normally
cool and often wet in summer — set new record highs Monday above 40°C.
Despite cooler air from the Atlantic offering
some respite there Tuesday, dozens of departments remained on orange alert,
with temperatures still expected to top 40°C in the east and south and violent
thunderstorms forecast locally.
The heat wave — the second to engulf parts of
Europe in recent weeks — has contributed to deadly wildfires in France, Greece,
Portugal, and Spain, destroying vast tracts of land.
Firefighters in France’s southwest were still
struggling to contain two massive fires that have caused widespread destruction
and forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.
Nearly 1,700 firefighters from all over the
country, supported by significant air resources, are battling the two blazes that
have so far burned more than 19,000 hectares of forest.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Patrick Davet,
mayor of La Teste-de-Buch, the site of one inferno which has prompted mass
evacuations.
“Economically, it’s going to be very
difficult for them and very difficult for the town because we are a tourist
town, and we need the (tourist) season.”
In Brittany’s Finistere region, hundreds of
firefighters, specialized vehicles, and water bombing aircraft were tackling
blazes.
Deaths
In
Spain — nearly 10 days into the latest heat wave — more than a dozen fires
continued to rage Tuesday, including in the northwest province of Zamora, which
already experienced a huge fire last month.
Known as one of the largest wolf reserves in
Europe, it saw nearly 30,000 hectares of land reduced to ashes during the June
blaze.
Nearly 6,000 people had to be evacuated from
there this week after flames destroyed several thousand hectares of meadows and
forests, regional authorities said.
Rail traffic between
Madrid and Galicia, in
the northwest, remained suspended after fires on either side of the tracks.
Several people have died in recent days due
to the blazes while separately, an office worker in his fifties died from
heatstroke in Madrid.
In Portugal, more than 1,400 firefighters were
fighting fires in the centre and north of the country, despite a clear drop in
temperatures in recent days.
A couple in their seventies died Monday after
they ran off the road while trying to escape the flames in their car.
Almost the entire country has been on high
alert for wildfires despite a slight drop in temperatures, which last Thursday
hit 47°C — a record for July.
The fires have already killed two other
people, injured around 60 and destroyed between 12,000 and 15,000 hectares of
land there.
Heat
Elsewhere,
temperatures could locally exceed 40°C in Belgium near the French border,
prompting the Royal Meteorological Institute to issue its highest alert level.
Big state-run museums, primarily in
Brussels,
took the unusual step of offering free access Tuesday to over-65s to help them
stay cool.
In Germany, temperatures were expected to
reach up to 40°C in the west.
On Monday, two firefighters were injured
while beating back a forest fire in a mountainous area in Saxony state.
The hot summer so far has raised fears of
drought, with the German Farmers’ Association president warning of “major
losses” in food production.
Henning Christ, who grows wheat and other
crops in Brandenburg state, told AFP his farm was 20 percent below its average
annual yield.
“We’ve had almost no rain for months, coupled
with high temperatures,” he said.
“We have become used to drought and dry
periods to some extent, but this year has been very unusual.”
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