Europe is “burning” – France on red alert due to heat

After the record temperatures recorded yesterdaySaturday, in many parts of it Francethe pre-season heat wave that hits the country is being carried today to the east, where the mercury is expected to reach 38 degrees Celsius.

Spain, which also encountered an unusual for this season heat wavewas still fighting yesterday with a large fire, which its firefighters were trying to control.

In France, almost three quarters of the population, or 45 million peoplewere set yesterday on a red or orange alarm for very high temperatures for the season.

This morning the French meteorological service, Météo-France, raised the red alert for 11 apartments in the south-west of the country, but maintained the orange alarm for 50 apartments in central and eastern France.

Isolated thunderstorms are expected on the Atlantic coast, at the beginning of a deterioration of the phenomenon, which is expected on Sunday night, and which will allow the heatwave “to gradually recede and now affect only the eastern part of the country”, according to French Meteorological service.

Last night, an unexpected and strong gust of wind off the coast of Normandy caused the death of a kite surfer, throwing him in a restaurant window in Villers-sur-Mer, in northwestern France.

Although temperatures are expected to drop in the west, the heatwave will continue in the regions of the northeastern part of the country, mainly in Alsace, where Météo France predicts that the mercury will reach up to 38 degrees Celsius.

42.9 points in Biarritz

Yesterday the heat wave escalated in southwestern France where “temperatures close to 42/43 degrees Celsius” were recorded locally in southern Aquitaine, according to the Météo France. Yesterday, moreover, “absolute temperature records were broken”, mainly with that of Biarritz, where the thermometer showed 42.9 degrees, 2.3 degrees higher than the previous record set in 2003.

Many festive, sporting and cultural events were canceled.

In some cities, many people visited museums in search of some coolness. In Bordeaux, in southwestern France, where the thermometer read 40 degrees Celsius, according to the French Meteorological Service, admission to museums was free.

In the French capital, at the Museum of the Liberation of Paris, General Leclerc’s museum – Jean Moulin Museum, Sonia de Mann, a 70-year-old Belgian tourist who was there with her daughter, said she “chose a museum during the day” rather than visit Montmartre, as planned. The two of them would also have the opportunity to visit one of the parks and gardens of Paris that would be open all night due to the heat.

In southeastern France, an artillery shell fired at a major French army training camp burned about 6,000 acres of vegetation, but was to be brought under control.

The multiplication of heat waves in Europe is a direct consequence of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions increase the power, duration and repetition rate of heat waves, according to scientists.

The current wave came from the Maghreb via the Iberian Peninsula

In Spainfirefighters continued yesterday, the last day of the heat wave, to fight against fires in the country, one of which destroyed almost 200,000 acres in the northwestern part of the country, while the temperature reached 43 degrees Celsius.

The largest of these forest fires was still uncontrolled yesterday afternoon in the Sierra de la Coulembra, a mountain range in the Castile-Leon region of northwestern Spain, near the border with Portugal. A total of almost 200,000 acres were burned there.

At the same time, hundreds of residents of 11 villages were forced to flee their homes threatened by the blaze, and authorities were forced to close the highway and shut down the high-speed train line between Madrid and the Galicia region. in the northwestern part of the country.

Firefighters in Spain were still fighting to put out the blaze in Catalonia and Navarre.