Seven people died in France directly or indirectly due to heat, Junior Energy Minister Maud Bregeon said yesterday, as a spring heat wave continued to scorch parts of Western Europe.
Five of the seven fatalities were people drowning in lakes, rivers or beaches, Bregeon said.
The United Kingdom smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours yesterday, triggering government warnings about risks to life.
A temperature of 35.1C was recorded at London’s Kew Gardens, Britain’s Met Office weather service said, breaking the 34.8C record set a day earlier at Kew. The provisional readings smashed the long-standing record of 32.8C set in 1922 and matched in 1944.
London also recorded a rare ‘tropical night’, defined as one in which the temperature does not fall below 20C.
Records also fell in France, where temperatures reached 36C on Monday in the country’s southwest and widely remained above 20C at night.
The national weather service, Meteo-France, said a ‘heat dome’, with heat held in place by a high-pressure weather front, was producing temperatures more than 10C above what is usual for this time of year.
Unpredictable and extreme weather is becoming more frequent as Earth warms. Experts say unprecedented and deadly weather extremes that sometimes strike at abnormal times and in unusual places are putting more people in danger.
“We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heat wave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change arising from our emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases,” said Peter Thorne, director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre, at Maynooth University, in Ireland. “But, nevertheless, many of the records being set, particularly in the UK and France, are mind-bogglingly crazy.”
After a UK long weekend that sent people flocking to beaches, pools and shady parks, London commuters sweltered yesterday in subway carriages without air conditioning. Trains to and from the busy Waterloo station were disrupted by a report of smoke on the tracks.
In Scotland, firemen worked through the night to douse a grass fire that sent smoke billowing from Arthur’s Seat, the rocky hill that looms over Edinburgh.
The UK Health Security Agency issued an amber health alert for large parts of the country for today, warning of a potential health risk, particularly among older people, at the hottest times of the day. The UK is used to moderate temperatures, and many homes, schools and businesses do not have air conditioning.
At least four teenagers died in apparent drownings in UK lakes and reservoirs, and a 60-year-old man died in the sea in southwest England, authorities said.
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