Spain records highs of 46C and France under alert as Europe swelters in heatwave | Europe weather

A vicious heat wave has engulfed southern Europe, with punishing temperatures which have reached summits of 46c (114.8F) in Spain and placed almost all of continental France under alert.

The extreme heat, reinforced by the pollution of fossil fuels, has for several days burned Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece while southern Europe is undergoing its first major heat wave of summer.

High temperatures have prompted the authorities in several countries to issue new health warnings and to jostle firefighters to prevent forest fires from breaking.

“Extreme heat is no longer a rare event – it has become the new normal,” said António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, at a development conference in Seville on Monday.

The city in the south of Spanish is expected to roast in more than 40 ° C for the next three days and facing night temperatures at least 25 ° C until Thursday morning. Doctors expressed an alarm in the face of the combination of hot and uncomfortably hot nights, which can exert deadly stress on the human body.

In Italy, where 21 cities out of 27 were placed in the highest heat alert on Sunday, hospital admissions in some of the hottest regions – such as Tuscany – increased by 20%. People were advised not to venture outside between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

In France, heat warnings covered almost the whole continent for the first time in history. Mtéo-France has placed 88% of administrative areas under the second highest orange heat alerts. “It is unprecedented,” said the Minister of Ecology, Agnès Panniers-Runacher.

The French government has asked companies to adapt the hours of staff to protect heat workers, and 200 public schools must be partly or completely closed on Monday and Tuesday. The first fire of summer broke out in France in the southwest of the country this weekend, burning 400 hectares and leading to the evacuation of precaution of more than 100 people from their home.

In Spain, which had the worst of the weather, a provisional temperature record of June 46C was established on Saturday afternoon in El Granado, in the Andalucían province of Huelva. The highest temperature previously recorded for June was 45.2 ° C recorded in Seville in 1965.

Sunday was the hottest June 29 in Spain, according to the Aemet archives, the Spanish meteorological agency, which dates back to 1950. The heat should last until Thursday.

In Portugal, where seven of the 18 regions are subject to red warnings of “extreme risk”, meteorologists expect the time to cool on Wednesday evening.

The countries further north are also in danger. The German meteorological service said that heat and dry time are stifling the risk of forest fires, some cities imposing limits on water extraction as temperatures in certain parts of the country approach 40C on Wednesday.

In Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin, the government urged employers to take into account the danger of their staff. “Companies are linked by thermal protection rules in the workplace,” said Regional Minister of Health Britta Müller, in particular by maintaining an acceptable temperature inside and rushing against excessive sun exposure.

The United Kingdom should have temperatures of 34C in London and south-east of England, with the Met Office warning that high temperatures and wet conditions will be “quite uncomfortable” for those working outside, as well as for people leaving Glastonbury and attending Wimbledon.

Radhika Khosla, an urban climatologist at the University of Oxford, said: “Populations in urban areas like London are particularly sensitive to extreme heat, because concrete and asphalt absorb and re -emotion of the sun, the amplifying its impact on our body. For this reason, outdoor workers are particularly at risk and should take regular ruptures for hydrates in the shade. ”.

The heat kills about half a million people worldwide each year, the elderly and people with a particularly vulnerable chronic disease.

Extreme temperatures across Europe are the result of a heat dome that tramps a high pressure and hot air area. He arrives in the middle of an ongoing marine heat wave which left the 5C Mediterranean warmer than normal, according to climate data changes institute of the University of Maine.

Dr. Michael Byrne, a climatologist at St Andrews University, said that the heat domes were not new to the temperatures they delivered. “Europe is more than 2c warmer than at the pre-industrial era, so when a heat dome occurs, it leads to a warmer heat wave,” he said.

The doctors of the continent have warned people to take additional care in hot weather, to encourage them to stay out of the heat, to drink a lot of water, to wear loose clothes and to check the vulnerable neighbors.

Researchers believe that dangerous temperatures in Europe will kill 8,000 to 80,000 people more by the end of the century, while the lost lives against stronger heat exceed those saved from the softer cold.

“The planet becomes warmer and more dangerous,” said Guterres, who called for more action to stop climate change. “No country is safe.”

Additional reports by Angélique Chrisafis in Paris, Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Deborah Cole in Berlin