Europe bakes again in near-record temperatures
PARIS (AFP) — Europe baked in near-record temperatures on Monday, but some respite was on the horizon after weeks of nonstop sun- shine as people come to terms with what may prove to be the region’s new normal in an era of climate change.
Temperatures were expected to peak at around 37 degrees Celsius in southern France on Monday, while the north is due to be hotter today. On Saturday, they hit their highest levels since a 2003 heatwave killed thousands of mainly elderly people.
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said people had to take proper care to cope with the heat and warned that everyone had to adapt.
“You need to drink a lot, but also to eat and take salt,” Buzyn said.
“We are probably going to adapt our warnings in the coming years, because this is something we haven’t been seeing until now.”
In Spain, the death toll rose to seven after a 40-year-old German man on the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James) pilgrimage succumbed to heat stroke on Sunday in the eastern region of Extremadura, a spokeswoman for Spain’s Guardia Civil police force told AFP.
Local officials also recorded other heat stroke deaths in the Extremadura and Catalonia regions.
Firefighters, benefitting from calmer winds, were meanwhile gaining control of a wildfire in the southwestern province of Huelva, just across the border from the Algarve in southern Portugal.
Temperatures remained high, especially in the southeast where they were forecast to hit 40-42 degrees Celsius.
In Portugal, temperatures have eased slightly but not enough to make the job of some 1,100 firefighters aided by 160 soldiers in Monchique any easier pending the expected arrival of two Spanish Canadair firefighting planes.