Deadly heatwave grips Europe as record temperatures soar

Western Europe was in the grip of a deadly heatwave that had killed dozens of people, closed schools, slowed trains and knocked out electricity as temperatures surged across France, Italy and Britain. In France, crews were still working to restore power to thousands of homes in Brittany after the country logged its hottest day since records began nearly 80 years ago, with 44.3C measured in Pissos.

Italy’s health ministry issued its highest heat alert for 16 cities, including Florence, Milan, Rome, Turin and Verona. In Britain, the Met Office put the country on course for its hottest June day ever and issued only its second extreme-heat weather warning in history. France placed 54 regional administrative areas under red heatwave warning, an unprecedented number, while hundreds of schools were ordered closed. Farmers in parts of the continent harvested grain at night to avoid the worst of the heat, and the heatwave also disrupted Paris Fashion Week as designers shifted shows to the morning.

At least 48 people died in France after drowning as they tried to cool off, while two young children died of heat in a car. In Spain, two elderly people died of heatstroke after temperatures climbed above 40C.

The pattern driving the crisis is an omega block, a weather formation in which a dome of warm, settled high pressure becomes trapped between two cooler low-pressure systems, locking hot air over the same region for days or even weeks. The current block was pushing temperatures as much as 18C above normal. Clair Barnes of Imperial College London said Europe’s heatwaves are now 2C to 4C hotter than they would have been without human-caused warming.

Météo-France compared the conditions with the August 2003 heatwave, which lasted 16 days and caused an estimated 80,000 excess deaths across Europe. Red alerts, school closures, power failures and transport disruption spread from France to Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Britain.