A historic heatwave is tightening its grip on Europe on Thursday, with at least 101 million people facing temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, records smashing daily and a death toll climbing across multiple countries as the heat dome shifts eastward after scorching western Europe since last weekend.
The UK broke its all-time June temperature record twice in 24 hours. The mercury hit 36.4C in Yeovilton, Somerset on Thursday, shattering Wednesday’s record of 36.1C set in Gosport, Hampshire, which had itself broken a 50-year-old mark. Switzerland registered its hottest June day in 80 years, with Basel reaching 38C, surpassing a record dating back to the 1940s.
France has been the hardest hit. Around 50 deaths have been recorded there, most of them drownings as people sought relief in rivers and lakes. Power outages struck northwestern France after a heat-related transformer failure, leaving 38,500 homes without electricity. Paris enforced early closures of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. In Spain, the heatwave is estimated to have contributed to 212 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday, according to the country’s MoMo excess mortality monitoring system. Italy issued its highest-level heat alerts for 16 cities including Rome, Milan and Florence, where the Uffizi museum closed after air conditioning failures caused power outages.
The heat is now moving east. Germany is forecast to hit 41C on Friday and Saturday. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are all now in the path of the system. The World Health Organization has described the event as a health emergency, noting that heat has killed roughly 200,000 people across Europe over the past four years.
Climate scientists say Europe is warming at roughly twice the global average and that events of this kind, once rare, are now becoming a near-annual feature of the continent’s summers.
