Two children were found dead in a car in France on Monday as much of Europe sweltered through an intense heatwave, with national authorities issuing danger warnings and taking special measures to reduce the impact of the high temperatures. The youngsters, aged two and four, were found in their family car in a residential parking lot in the southern town of Carpentras, where investigators said they believed the heatwave was the most likely reason for the deaths.
The latest bout of exceptionally high temperatures to hit Europe has seen outdoor events cancelled, transport disrupted, schools shut and office workers told to work from home, as the authorities issued health alerts to protect the elderly and vulnerable. France, at the epicentre of the weather anomaly, has been sweltering for days. On Monday, French authorities closed 1,350 schools due to the searing weather, while another 4,000 schools cut short classroom hours so pupils could go home around midday.
The French government’s emergency response cell warned people not to try to cool off in unsupervised water areas such as lakes and rivers, after 13 people died by drowning at the weekend, including a 13-year-old girl. In Germany, police said five people had died in fatal swimming accidents over the weekend. Britain’s Met Office issued a rare red warning for extreme heat — the national weather agency’s highest alert level, indicating risk to life and the possibility of major infrastructure such as roads and railways being closed.
It was only the second time the Met Office has issued such a warning, with temperatures in the shade expected to rise as high as 38 to 40C on Wednesday and Thursday. The warning runs from 9:00 am (0800 GMT) on Wednesday to 9:00 pm on Thursday and covers a large area of central and southern England, including London and Birmingham, the UK’s two largest cities. Multiple schools in southwest England said they were planning to finish the school day early, and a train company said it was cancelling or changing some of its services out of London because of the “severe weather”.
Akshay Deoras, a senior researcher at the University of Reading’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, in England, said it was clear what was behind the rash of heat records.”Human-driven climate change has provided the springboard for this event, loading the atmosphere with extra heat and making extreme temperatures far more intense than they would have been in the past,” he said.
In France, 54 of the country’s 96 mainland departments were on the highest heat alert, with temperatures forecast to climb up to 43C in the southwestern city of Bordeaux and 39C in the capital Paris, said national weather service Meteo-France. Despite the measures taken to protect schoolchildren, some parents voiced alarm at the hot conditions in classrooms. One mother in Paris, Gaelle Roubere, told AFP emergency services had to be called when some pupils in her child’s school fell ill in the heat.”There was vomiting, nausea,” she said, speaking in front of the school, where banners had been hung in the windows with messages such as: “38C in classrooms is TOO HOT!”French forecasters say the current heatwave, which has already been blamed for the deaths of several elderly people, could end up being as serious as one in August 2003 that claimed the lives of nearly 15,000 people in France.”With this intense heat at the moment, it’s tricky.
You really have to protect yourself from the sun. You need to stay hydrated, otherwise you don’t feel well,” nurse Mamone Outhaithany, 31, told AFP in the southern city of Marseille.- ‘Annihilated’ -The high temperatures on Sunday forced the cancellation in several towns of France’s annual street music festival, while an outdoor screening of Spain’s World Cup football match against Saudi Arabia was scrapped in Madrid.
French and Belgian authorities also cancelled or cut back rail services because of fears about breakdowns causing logjams and delays. Elsewhere in Europe:- Temperatures in Belgium are expected to be “the hottest ever recorded” in the coming week, warned David Dehenauw, head of forecasting at the IRM meteorological institute.- Spain’s weather service Aemet warned of “extremely high” temperatures for the season, day and night, until Wednesday, forecast to hit 44C in some areas.
Liz Bentley, the chief executive of Britain’s Royal Meteorological Society, predicted that existing UK heat records for June would be “annihilated” — as happened in May. The current heatwave is the second in consecutive months, after an unusually hot spell in May broke new ground. Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming, and warn they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.
Meteo-France says that of the 51 heatwaves recorded nationwide since 1947, 34 have taken place since 2000 and 26 since 2011.burs-pdw/rmb/jhb
Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:29:00 GMT