A deadly heatwave continued to grip Europe on Friday, with authorities warning that the extreme conditions were shifting east after days of record-breaking temperatures that overwhelmed hospitals and were linked to hundreds of deaths.
More than 101 million people across Europe have endured temperatures above 35C for several days. Officials estimate that several hundred people, including children, have died during the heatwave, with many drowning while trying to escape the intense heat.
A study released on Friday concluded that human-caused climate change was "unequivocally" responsible for the severity of the heatwave, which shattered temperature records in Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland. The Netherlands also issued its first-ever red heat alert.
As temperatures began easing across western Europe, eastern parts of the continent prepared for worsening conditions. Germany expected temperatures to reach 40C through the weekend, prompting the cancellation of several outdoor events and advice from the national rail operator to avoid unnecessary travel.
In France, hospitals struggled to cope with a sharp rise in heat-related emergencies. Authorities imposed the unusual measure of banning evening alcohol sales and public drinking in Paris from Friday through the weekend in an effort to reduce pressure on emergency services.
"We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities," Paris police chief Patrice Faure said. "The number of hospitalisations keeps increasing."
French health authorities reported a fourfold increase in emergency department visits linked to the heat, alongside a surge in cardiac arrests.
In Britain, the London Ambulance Service said Wednesday's extreme temperatures resulted in its busiest day for life-threatening emergency calls.
AFP calculations based on forecasts from the German weather service and population projections by the European Joint Research Centre suggested that more than 380 million people would experience temperatures above 30C.
United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said the heatwave, intensified by buildings and infrastructure not designed for such conditions, "has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it".
"Until humanity stops burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas, extreme heat will keep getting worse," he added.
Scientists from Europe, the United States and Britain said the intensity of the heatwave would have been "virtually impossible" without human-induced climate change. Their study found that a comparable event would have been around 3.5C cooler during the day in June 1976.
The human toll continued to rise across the continent. French authorities said a three-year-old boy was found dead inside a car in the suburbs of Paris after temperatures exceeded 40C on Wednesday. The government also reported that at least 40 people, many of them young, had drowned during the heatwave.
In Spain, the MoMo mortality monitoring system estimated that 212 deaths recorded between Sunday and Wednesday were linked to the extreme heat.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported five heat-related deaths, including two farmworkers and a construction worker.
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, said the prolonged hot weather was caused by a "heat dome" created by hot air from North Africa trapped beneath a low-pressure system, preventing cooler air from moving into the region.
Polly Turton, head of climate action at the environmental organisation Shade the UK, said Europe would need to adapt to increasingly frequent extreme heat.
"The situation is the new normal. The sleepless nights we're all experiencing, we are going to have to adapt to," she said.
"At the moment, we are not a well-adapted UK by any means."
