Historic European heatwave pushes temperatures above 40°C, affecting over 100 million people

France and Spain, among the hardest‑hit nations, began tallying the casualties caused by the extreme heat, including a tragic case of a three‑year‑old child who was found in his family’s locked car.

AFP calculations, drawing on German weather forecasts and the European Joint Research Centre’s 2025 population projections, estimate that more than 380 million Europeans could experience temperatures above 30 °C.

The UN’s climate chief, Simon Stiell, said the heatwave—exacerbated by infrastructure and buildings not built for such extreme conditions—“has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it”.

“It is the latest price we pay for fossil‑fuel pollution baking our planet. Until humanity stops burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas, extreme heat will keep getting worse,” he added.

The deputy director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, Samantha Burgess, explained that the scorching conditions resulted from a “heat dome”—a mass of trapped warm air originating from North Africa within a low‑pressure system that halted the inflow of cooler air.

“While heat domes are a natural weather phenomenon, anthropogenic climate change is amplifying their severity and increasing the likelihood of record‑breaking temperatures,” she added.

On Thursday, most of mainland France was under extreme heat alerts, with roughly 63 million of its 67 million inhabitants exposed to temperatures exceeding 30 °C.

Similar conditions will affect about 70 million people in Germany, 48 million in Italy and 38 million in the United Kingdom, with high temperatures also reported in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Temperatures are forecast to ease across western Europe from Friday, while eastern Europe remains on red alert as the heat persists into the weekend.

Cooling off

In Spain, where June temperature records have been broken, the MoMo mortality monitoring system reported 212 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday that may be heat‑related.

Three deaths in northern France’s Pas‑de‑Calais region were likely caused by the heat, and a three‑year‑old boy was found dead in a car in Paris suburbs where temperatures peaked at 40 °C on Wednesday.

The boy had climbed into his family’s unlocked vehicle while he was supposed to be napping and was discovered unconscious, a public prosecutor said.

Two other children have died under similar circumstances earlier in the week.

Dozens of people—couples, families with infants and children alike—settled into hammocks and camping mats at Paris’s Buttes‑Chaumont park in an effort to escape the oppressive heat.

“We’ve got everything we need here, and there’s a lively crowd, so the atmosphere is great,” 26‑year‑old Maissame Decosse told AFP.

“It’s much better to be here than cooped up indoors.”

In other parts of the city, locals flocked to the Canal Saint‑Martin, some bringing inflatables, after authorities opened the waterway for swimming in response to the heat.

However, in Brussels residents complained about the scarcity of public swimming facilities in the Belgian capital, a deficiency that made coping with temperatures approaching 40 °C particularly difficult.

“It’s honestly a joke for a city like Brussels with over a million residents,” said Paul Steinbruck, co‑founder of the Pool is Cool organisation.

In Germany, where temperatures were already in the high 30s and projected to reach 40 °C over the weekend, several outdoor events were cancelled.

Rail operator Deutsche Bah still urged passengers to avoid travel, citing a high risk of disruption from wildfires, heavy rain and thunderstorms.

‘Nature is angry’

The impacts of extreme heat—ranging from dehydration to heatstroke—are especially concerning for caregivers of vulnerable groups, such as young children, the elderly and individuals with pre‑existing medical conditions.

“Patients with dementia often forget to ask if they are thirsty,” she noted.

The UK’s Met Office extended a red‑warning heat alert through Friday night for London and surrounding areas, forecasting temperatures of 37‑38 °C on Wednesday and Thursday—a new June record.

A 97‑year‑old resident of Kingsley Court, Lucine Nazikian, said she was far from pleased with the heat and warned that the world must take the crisis seriously—or pay the price.

“Nature is angry with us because we destroy everything,” she said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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