Italy has put most of its big cities on a heatwave red alert as temperatures reached 46C in Sardinia on Wednesday.
The alert for 23 cities across the country, from Trieste in the north-east to Messina in the south-west, means the heat poses a threat to everybody, not just the vulnerable.
The health ministry said it would activate an information hotline and teams of mobile health workers visited the elderly in Rome, where temperatures have already broken records.
“These people are afraid they won’t make it, they are afraid they can’t go out,” said Claudio Consoli, a doctor and director of a health unit.
Highs of 46C were recorded on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia on Wednesday afternoon.
The heatwave has been dubbed by local media as the “settimana infernale” - or “week of hell”.
The intense heatwave hitting southern Europe is bringing warnings of increased risk of deaths and heart attacks.
Wildfires burned for a third day west of the Greek capital Athens, with air water bombers resuming operations first thing Wednesday morning and firefighters working throughout the night to keep flames away from coastal refineries.
The fires have gutted dozens of homes, prompted hundreds of people to flee and blanketed the area in thick smoke. Temperatures could climb to 43C on Thursday, forecasters said.
Meanwhile, Spain warned of the risk of wildfires in most of the country though residents were allowed to return to their homes in La Palma island where a blaze that raged for five days was stabilised.
Although the heatwave appeared to be subsiding in Spain, residents in Greece were left surveying the wreckage of their homes after the wildfires.
“Everything burned, everything. I will throw it all, it’s all waste. The boiler burned, it’s done, it melted," said Abbram Paroutsidis, 65.
Scientists have long warned that climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions mainly from burning fossil fuels, will make heatwaves more frequent, severe and deadly.
Experts say Europe in particular is warming faster than many climate models had predicted.
