Deadly heatwave grips Europe with record high temperatures - The Latest
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What are the current impacts of the heatwave in Europe?
This is The Guardian.
We are seeing these temperatures of 40 and above, and I think that's something that is just very hard to comprehend. These are uncomfortable temperatures, and it quickly becomes dangerous. There have already been dozens of reported deaths. We're not used to the heat, and so we maybe fail to adapt when heat hits, and maybe we weren't even very prepared in the first place.
From The Guardian's Today In Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hough. Europe is experiencing its second deadly heatwave at a very early stage of the summer, with the situation particularly acute and deadly in France at the moment, but soon to spread to other parts of Europe. Ajit Naranjan, you are The Guardian's Europe Environment Correspondent. Can we start with France? Because France has experienced a particularly terrible night and there have been sadly multiple deaths, haven't there?
So France has seen its hottest afternoons and nights on record, if you average the temperatures out across the country. And there have already been dozens of reported deaths. Now, many of these are actually from drowning, as people enter water bodies trying to cool down. A lot of them are very young people, young children in some cases. But there have also been cases of people reportedly dying from heat stroke, which I guess is what many of us think about when we talk about heat waves and... I don't know, being caught outside having maybe not drunk enough water or working in a job like on a farm or sweeping a street. In one particularly tragic case, there were two young children who were found dead in a car in southwestern France.
And although it's unclear exactly what happened, the public prosecutor is treating it as the most likely line of inquiry. And this follows similar deaths in Spain just during the last heat wave, which, I mean, as any listeners in Western Europe will know, was only a few weeks ago. and in one of these cases again a toddler died after being left in a car during just brutal heat
It is absolutely heartbreaking, the reporting about those two children left in a car in those conditions. Ajit, there's a meeting, a top level meeting in the French government this afternoon. What do we know about the measures that are being considered? As you say, some of this is about people kind of going into water resources to keep cool, but it's also about closing schools as well, isn't it?
Yeah, one of the big things that happens during heatwave when countries or cities respond well is that they adapt daily lives. In some cases, employers letting people leave work early or not coming to work at all. And schools is a particularly important one, right? We're just talking about how children are very much at risk. And some schools have been closing, are closing this week, not just in France, but in other places. And there's kind of two reasons for this. On the one hand, teachers are kind of forced to send kids home because it's just too hot to concentrate. You can't study in these temperatures. Employees will also know, but maybe have less flexibility, that you also often can't work in these conditions.
But it is always a bit of a question mark, right? Because children are returning to homes. Some of them may be going to very nice air-conditioned homes.
How is France specifically affected by the heatwave?
Some of them might live in nice green areas where they've kind of got something happening to get rid of this urban heat island effect that just bakes cities further than the surrounding countryside. But others will be going to poorly insulated homes that kind of just let the heat get soaked up.
So these existing wealth disparities that will invariably affect those on lower incomes and the most vulnerable, which is really worrying. Here in the UK, we're expected to see record temperatures this afternoon for June. Similarly, as in France, there are a number of schools that are closing. That seems to be quite a widespread measure here. You're in Berlin, where the heatwave hasn't quite hit, but is coming down the track. Is that right?
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