By AFP
A punishing heatwave fuelling ferocious wildfires in western Europe pushed temperatures in Britain over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time on Tuesday and regional heat records tumbled elsewhere.
After the UK’s warmest night on record, the Met Office said a new high of 40.3C had been recorded at Coningsby in eastern England.
At least 34 locations in Britain beat the previous record of 38.7C set in Cambridge, eastern England, in 2019.
Experts blamed climate change for the soaring temperatures — and warned that worse is yet to come.
Heatwaves “are becoming more frequent and this negative trend will continue… at least until the 2060s, independent of our success in climate mitigation efforts,” UN World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva.
“In the future, these kinds of heatwaves are going to be normal, and we will see even stronger extremes.”
The high temperatures have triggered an unprecedented red alert in much of England, where some rail lines were closed as a precaution and schools shuttered in some areas.
Grassland fires erupted on the edge of London, with one forcing the evacuation of 14 people as farm buildings, houses and garages were consumed by the flames.
Meanwhile, all trains were cancelled from the usually busy Kings Cross station, leaving many travellers stranded.
– Runways melting –
“It’s a little frustrating,” said US tourist Deborah Byrne, trying to reach Scotland.
But with road surfaces and runways melting and fears of rails buckling, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps conceded much of Britain’s infrastructure “is just not built for this temperature”.
In France, 64 different areas registered record high temperatures on Monday, the national weather service confirmed, most of them along the western Atlantic coast where temperatures also soared above 40C.
But the all-time high for mainland France, set in 2019 near Montpellier, of 46C did not appear under threat this week.
The heatwave — the second to engulf parts of Europe in recent weeks — has 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.
“The firemen rang the doorbell to tell us we had to evacuate right away,” a pensioner told AFP in La Teste-de-Buch, as he left with his partner and pets in a car.
Nearly 1,700 firefighters from all over the country are battling the two blazes that have so far burned more than 19,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of forest near the Dune du Pilat, Europe’s biggest sand dune.
President Emmanuel Macron was to visit the fire-hit region on Wednesday, the presidency said.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Patrick Davet, mayor of La Teste-de-Buch.
“Economically, it’s going to be very difficult… because we are a tourist town.”
– ‘Climate emergency‘ –
In Greece, authorities called on residents in eight villages to evacuate out of the path of a fire north of Athens.
The Greek fire department said that it had dealt with 39 fire outbreaks across the country in just 24 hours.