Seven die as Europe burns, swelter in record heat

PARIS: Wildfires burned tracts of land in France and Spain at the weekend as Europe sweltered in record-breaking temperatures that pushed the mercury towards all-time highs on Sunday in Germany, killing at least seven people.

Temperatures in France’s southern Gard region hit an all-time high of 45.9 °C (114.62 F) on Friday — hotter than in California’s Death Valley — sparking scores of fires that burned 550 hectares of land and destroyed several homes and vehicles.

One man died while competing on Saturday in a cycling race in the southwestern Ariege region, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The 53-year-old crashed after feeling unwell, local public prosecutor Laurent Dumaine said on Sunday, adding police were investigating the precise cause of death.

The race was called off after several participants were taken sick due to the heat, organisers said.

Another cyclist died in the southern region of Vaucluse, with authorities attributing the man’s collapse to the heatwave.

“The heatwave has also hit the vineyards of Herault, widespread damage observed,” Jerome Despey, a wine producer in France’s southwestern Herault region and head of the local chamber of agriculture said on Twitter, posting photos of shrivelled grapes. In Spain, 40 out of 50 regions have been put under weather alert with seven of them considered to be an extreme risk, the national weather agency said. Temperatures in Girona, in northeastern Spain, reached 43.9 degrees on Friday — the highest ever recorded in the Catalan city.

Germany’s weather service warned of “extreme” heat on Sunday, forecasting peak temperatures of up to 39 degrees Celsius from Saxony in the east to the upper Rhine in the west. That’s just below an all-time high of 40.3 Celsius.

At least seven heat-related deaths have been reported in recent days: In addition to the two French cyclists, two people have died in Spain and three in Italy.