Hospitals overwhelmed as Europe heatwave shifts east

PARIS – A deadly European heatwave that has saturated hospitals as temperatures soared to record highs was to shift east on June 26, with the authorities warning of more misery on a continent not used to stretches of punishing heat.

At least 101 million Europeans have roasted for several days in temperatures of over 35 deg C, with an estimated few hundred people, including children, thought to have died as a result, many drowning as they sought respite from the inferno.

Scientists said in a study released on June 26 that climate change was “unequivocally” responsible for the heat that broke records in Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland, while the Netherlands issued its first-ever red alert over heat.

With French hospitals overwhelmed, the authorities took the rarely used step of banning evening alcohol sales and public consumption in Paris starting on June 26 and into the weekend.

As temperatures were expected to ease in western Europe from June 26, eastern Europe was on red alert, with the mercury set to climb.

In Germany, where temperatures were expected to hit 40 deg C through the weekend, several outdoor events were cancelled and the rail operator advised avoiding travel.

French and British health services reported a surge in emergency calls and visits as the merciless heat struck the elderly and the ill.

“We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities,” Paris police chief Patrice Faure said. “The number of hospitalisations keeps increasing.”

France saw a fourfold increase in emergency room visits for heat-related reasons and a surge of cardiac arrests, the authorities said.

London Ambulance Service said the extreme heat on June 24 had led to the highest number of life-threatening emergency calls in a day.

AFP calculations based on forecasts from the German weather service and 2025 population projections from the European Joint Research Centre indicated that more than 380 million people would face temperatures of over 30 deg C.

The UN’s climate chief Simon Stiell said the heatwave – made worse by buildings and infrastructure unsuited to such temperatures – “has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it”.

“Until humanity stops burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas, extreme heat will keep getting worse,” he added.

Scientists said on June 26 that human-caused climate change was “unequivocally” responsible for the intensity of the record-breaking heatwave, adding that it would have been “virtually impossible” for such exceptional temperatures to occur in June fifty years ago.

A similar heatwave would have been 3.5 deg C cooler during the day in June 1976, concluded the study by scientists from Europe, the United States and Britain.

A three-year-old boy was found dead in a car in the suburbs of Paris, where temperatures topped 40 deg C on June 24, the latest such death. At least 40 people, many of them young, have drowned in France in the heatwave, according to the government.

In Spain, the MoMo monitoring system of mortality rates said 212 deaths between June 21 and June 24 could be linked to the heat.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported five deaths from the heatwave including two farm workers and a builder.

The deputy director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, Samantha Burgess, said the hot weather was due to a “heat dome” of trapped air from north Africa in a low-lying high-pressure system, preventing cooler air from moving in.

Polly Turton, head of climate action at NGO Shade The UK, said the situation was “the new normal. The sleepless nights we’re all experiencing, we are going to have to adapt to,” she said.

“At the moment, we are not a well-adapted Britain by any means.” AFP