A fierce heat wave yesterday left western Europe sweltering, fueling ferocious wildfires and stretching emergency services, as it swept north and pushed temperatures in the UK over 40°C for the first time.
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 Britain into uncharted territory.
The UK’s previous all-time temperature record of 38.7°C, set in Cambridge in eastern England in 2019, had already been smashed earlier yesterday.
Photo: AP
“For the first time ever, 40 Celsius has provisionally been exceeded in the UK,” the Met Office said, adding that “temperatures are still climbing in many places.”
Experts blame climate change for the latest heat wave and note the more frequent extreme weather would 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, who was trying to reach Scotland.
With roads and runways melting and rails buckling, British Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps said 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.”
In France, towns and cities in the nation’s west registered their highest-ever temperatures on Monday, the national weather office said.
The western region of Brittany — normally cool and often wet in summer — set new record highs above 40°C.
Despite cooler air from the Atlantic offering some respite there yesterday, dozens of departments remained on orange alert, with temperatures still expected to top 40°C in the east and south, and violent thunderstorms forecast.
The heat wave has also 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 nation were battling the two blazes that have so far burned more than 19,000 hectares of forest.
“It’s heartbreaking,” La Teste-de-Buch Mayor Patrick Davet said. “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.”
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