Heatwave in Europe: record over 40° in the United Kingdom, fires still devastating

The temperature exceeded 40°C for the first time on Tuesday in the United Kingdom, hit like the rest of Western Europe by a heat wave with devastating forest fires, especially in France where 19,000 hectares burned in the south-west

Heatwave in Europe: record over 40° in the United Kingdom, fires still devastating

The temperature exceeded 40°C for the first time on Tuesday in the United Kingdom, hit like the rest of Western Europe by a heat wave with devastating forest fires, especially in France where 19,000 hectares burned in the south-west.

This is the second intense heat phenomenon in barely a month in Europe. This multiplication is a direct consequence of the climate crisis according to scientists, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing in intensity, duration and frequency.

The mercury exceeded a level never reached in the United Kingdom with 40.2°C at Heathrow airport in west London, then 40.3°C in Coningsby, a village in the northeast of the England, according to the Met Office weather agency.

This is 1.6° than the previous British record, which dated from July 2019 with 38.7°C.

The record has also been broken in Scotland, with 34.8°C, as well as in 29 locations in England.

"Obviously the English are not used to it. It's hard to be outside, even in the shade it's suffocating," Emily Nixon, 34, told AFP. refuge in a municipal swimming pool in the British capital.

Transport Minister Grant Schapps admitted to the BBC that the country's Victorian-era public transport was unable to handle such heat.

"All the trains are canceled because of the heat. I don't understand. They have trains in Australia. Which are running. What's the problem here?" asked Ashley Meeloo, a 62-year-old commuter in London.

At least a hundred firefighters were also fighting a fire that is ravaging the village of Wennington in east London.

The fire spread over an area of ​​40 hectares, including homes, farm buildings and garages. "I was sunbathing in my garden and a black cloud came," Ciar Meadows, a 30-year-old housewife, told AFP.

"Within an hour 'the fire' spread all the way to our house", "our cars disappeared", she continued.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent in a tweet his "thanks to all the firefighters and services on the front line", while several fires are counted in the country, including a dozen in London.

Environmental activists from the group Extinction Rebellion smashed the windows of the publisher of the tabloid The Sun on Tuesday morning to protest against the treatment of the heat wave in some media.

"The Sun chose to feature images of women in bikinis, beaches and happy children with ice cream," the band said. Another tabloid, the Daily Express, headlined Monday, "It's not the end of the world, stay cool and carry on."

Faced with these temperature records, the Secretary General of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Petteri Taalas expressed his hope for governments to "awareness", hoping that this type of phenomenon will have "a impact on voting behavior in democratic countries".

Elsewhere in Europe, new absolute heat records were recorded on Tuesday along the coasts of northwestern France, sometimes exceeding 40°C, such as in Dieppe, according to Météo-France.

The capital, Paris, had its second hottest day since records in the capital, with 40.5°C, but far from its all-time high of 42.6°C recorded on July 25, 2019.

The heat wave moved towards the east of France, leaving in its wake devastating fires, mainly in the southwest.

In Gironde, two giant fires ravaged more than 19,000 hectares of forest and 37,000 people had to be evacuated in total in six days. The smoke from these fires went up to Paris, more than 500 km away, and affected the quality of the air there, indicated Tuesday evening the observatory of the quality of the air in the Paris region.

In Belgium, two nuclear reactors located near Antwerp had to reduce their production power by more than 50% in order to limit the temperature of the water discharged into the river.

In Spain, where the extreme heat wave has been raging for almost ten days, forest fires continued to rage on Tuesday, especially in the province of Zamora (northwest).

According to regional authorities, nearly 6,000 people had to be evacuated because of the flames which destroyed several thousand hectares of vegetation.

“The climate emergency is deadly, from the point of view of human lives, and represents a loss for biodiversity,” recalled Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez during a visit to an area affected by the fires in the region of Galicia (north-west).

"So far this year, there have already been 11 large fires that we have had to fight, which is almost double the average for the past 10 years," he said.

In Portugal, 2,000 firefighters continued to fight the fires on Tuesday afternoon.

The two most worrying forest fires are in the far north of the country. One of them mobilized nearly 800 firefighters on Tuesday and led to the evacuation of three villages.

A couple in their 70s were killed in the area on Monday as they tried to escape the flames.

A further rise in temperatures is expected from Wednesday in the country.

burs-vg-spe-cpy/emd

20/07/2022 16:33:43 - London (AFP) - © 2022 AFP