Europe heatwave swamps hospitals, halts parties

Will, the owner of a food stall selling cooked turkey, ties a bandana around his head during a heatwave, before serving customers at Whitecross Street Market, in east London, June 26. The U.K. suffered its hottest ever June day on June 25, with temperatures reaching 36.7 degrees Celsius in the southwest, breaking a record set earlier that day as the extreme heat stretched across much of southern England. AFP-Yonhap

BERLIN — Authorities banned alcohol and major weekend festivities as a deadly European heatwave was forecast to shift east on Friday, choking 150 million people under 35C temperatures.

Medics in Britain and France warned hospitals were struggling with the heat and a surge in emergency calls.

German's weather service DWD warned of "severe to extreme heat stress in nearly all parts of the country," with records likely to be broken.

Authorities have reported hundreds of people dead in Spain and others across Europe, including in France, where scores of people drowned and several children died in hot cars.

Some cooler air breezed over western parts, but central and eastern Europe warned their heatwaves had yet to peak. The Czech Republic and Hungary were on red alert for the weekend, with temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius forecast.

Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming driven by humans burning fossil fuels — and are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.

Heat dome

At a homeless shelter on Thursday in Berlin, where the temperature topped 33C, Christian Bernardt, 52, found relief in a cool room.

"The heat is exhausting... Nobody was expecting this heatwave," he said.

"It's very tiring, especially when you have to walk down the street with all your luggage, wandering from train station to train station."

The deputy director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, Samantha Burgess, said the hot weather was due to a "heat dome" of trapped air from North Africa in a low-lying high-pressure system.

"The weather pattern itself is not particularly unusual," climate scientist Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution (WWA), told reporters

"But the temperatures are — or at least they used to be, without human-induced climate change."

150 mil. at 35 degrees Celsius

At least 150 million people in Europe were expected to experience temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, Friday, according to AFP calculations based on forecasts.

Maximum temperatures were forecast to exceed 30 degrees Celsius for more than 420 million people across Europe, excluding Turkey — around 70 percent of the population.

London Ambulance Service said Wednesday's extreme heat had led to the highest number of life-threatening emergency calls in a day.

France saw a fourfold increase in emergency room visits for heat-related reasons and a surge of cardiac arrests, the health ministry said.

"We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities," Paris police chief Patrice Faure said, announcing a rare ban on evening alcohol sales in Paris over the weekend.

Paris also postponed its Pride parade, scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

A woman shields herself from the sun with an umbrella during a heatwave near the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, June 26. AFP-Yonhap

Doctors' warning

Hilary Williams, clinical vice president at British doctor's body the Royal College of Physicians, said that hospitals had reported medical and IT equipment such as MRI scanners breaking down due to the heat.

"Our patients are too hot. The staff are really, really hot. And actually, I think these critical incidents have shown us that the machines can't cope as well," she told AFP on Thursday.

The National Health Service "isn't built for extreme heat," she said.

"These old buildings ... aren't built for high pressure."

Near Italy's Po River estuary, clam fishermen toiled picking their nets free of algae spawned by the heat.

"On top of all our problems, now there's this crazy heat, so long, so unexpected," said Paolo Mancin, head of a fishers' cooperative, standing in the 31C water.

"Algae form and the clams are dying in large numbers."

Authorities in the region warned the low level of the Po river threatened to cause a drought. Across Italy 18 cities were under red alert.

Heatwave heads east

Europe's western fringe enjoyed some relief, with a storm breaking overnight in the French region of Brittany, yielding cooler air on Friday.

"I've come back to life. We can breathe at last," said one local woman, Aurelie Sauvager, 47.

But much of the Netherlands remained under red alert, with authorities advising people to travel only if necessary and most schools closed.

Organizers cancelled the four-day techno music festival Defqon.1 in the central Netherlands.

Slovakia forecast temperatures up to 36C. In Bratislava swimming pools announced extended opening hours and authorities deployed tanker trucks of drinking water.

Hungary's Prime Minister Peter Magyar said authorities were preparing millions of bags of drinking water for possible public distribution and urging residents to conserve water.