Hospitals Raise Alert as Heatwave Slams Europe

Paris:French authorities banned public alcohol consumption in Paris and warned that hospitals were facing “saturation”, echoing warnings from health authorities across Europe amid a deadly heatwave on Thursday.

At least 101 million Europeans faced temperatures above 35 degrees and many people are thought to have died due to the record-breaking heatwave.

French and British health services reported an increase in emergency calls and visits as brutal heat affected the elderly and sick.

France and Spain counted the death toll from extreme heat; This included a three-year-old boy trapped in his family’s car.

“We are reaching saturation point in hospital facilities,” Paris police chief Patrice Faure said. “The number of people hospitalized is increasing”

Health Minister Stephanie Rist’s office said 25 cardiac arrests were recorded in Paris in 24 hours on Wednesday, although fewer than 10 heart attacks are usually recorded.

He said nationally there has been a fourfold increase in emergency room visits for heat-related reasons.

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

– Climate crisis –

AFP calculations, based on forecasts from the German weather service and 2025 population projections from the European Joint Research Centre, showed that more than 380 million people would face temperatures above 30C.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the heatwave “had the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it”, made worse by buildings and infrastructure unsuited to these temperatures.

“Extreme temperatures will continue to get worse until humanity stops burning massive amounts of coal, oil and natural gas,” he added.

At a cooling center in west London, Alley, a 45-year-old disabled man, fanned his face, complaining that there was “baking” outside.

“I was in the hospital because my blood pressure medications were not working,” he said, as temperatures reached record levels last month.

“This time I drank more water and came and brought my water bottle here.”

– Hundreds of deaths –

While it was stated that three deaths in the Pas-de-Calais region in northern France were “probably” caused by heat, the prosecutor said that a three-year-old boy was found dead in a car in the suburbs of Paris, where the temperature rose above 40 degrees on Wednesday.

This week, two more children died in similar circumstances in France.

Faure said that public consumption and sale of alcohol will be banned in the French capital as of Friday.

In Spain, where temperature records were set for June, the MoMo mortality monitoring system said 212 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday could be heat-related.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that five people, including two agricultural workers and a builder, died from the heat wave.

Many outdoor events have been canceled in Germany, where temperatures are in the upper 30s and expected to rise to 40 degrees over the weekend.

Rail operator Deutsche Bahn has told customers they should avoid travel due to the high risk of disruption due to bushfires, heavy rain and storms.

While Switzerland broke the June record with 38C, the Netherlands issued its first red alert temperature warning.

– Heat dome –

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said the warm weather was due to a “heat dome” of air coming from North Africa in the low-lying high-pressure system, which prevented colder air from getting in.

The temperature reached 36.4C in Yeovilton, south-west England, on Thursday, making it the hottest June day on history, the Met Office weather service said.

Lucine Nazikian, a resident of Kingsley Court Care Home in Hayes, west London, said the world needed to take heat seriously.

“Nature is angry at us because we are destroying everything,” he said.

Polly Turton, head of climate action at UK NGO Shade, said the situation was the “new normal”. “We will have to adapt to the sleepless nights we all experience,” he said.

“We are not a well-adapted UK by any means at the moment.”

Temperatures were expected to drop in Western Europe as of Friday, but Eastern Europe went on red alert as temperatures increased towards the weekend.