Huge wildfire rages on La Palma forcing thousands to evacuate
Temperature records have been shattered in Rome and Catalonia, provisional data suggests, as southern Europe is gripped by extreme heat and wildfires.
Britain’s Foreign Office has updated its travel advice for Spain and Greece, with holidaymakers urged to sign up for emergency alerts and warned of travel disruption as temperatures soar.
Thousands have been evacuated in recent days, as firefighters continue to battle wildfires near Athens, in the Canary Islands and on a Switzerland mountainside.
Despite these devastating impacts, temperatures are forecast to climb further later this week and into the weekend, in conditions mirrored around the world as millions of people in the United States, Asia and Africa also contend with extreme heat caused by the fossil-fuel driven climate crisis.
Meteorologists predict that temperatures this week may surpass Europe’s current record of 48.8C, set in Sicily in August 2021, raising fears of a repetition of last year’s heat deaths, which saw an estimated 61,000 fatalities in Europe alone.
The EU's emergency response coordination centre issued red alerts for high temperatures for most of Italy, northeastern Spain, Croatia, Serbia, southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.
