The UK on Tuesday broke its highest temperature record ever recorded as part of a heat wave, which the mayor of London said is causing a “huge increase” in the number of fires in the city .
The UK Met Office recorded a provisional reading of 40.2 C at London Heathrow Airport, breaking the 39.1 C record set in Charlwood, England, just an hour earlier, with several hours of daylight. day still.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Tuesday that the capital’s fire service is under “immense pressure”. The flames include a grass fire in Wennington, at the eastern end of the city, which is being tackled by 100 firefighters.
The London Fire Brigade said it had declared a “major incident”, meaning it could call for resources from other emergency services.
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A wildfire burns in Shirley Hills, on the outskirts of south London, while Britain declares a record high temperature so far.
The stifling climate has disrupted travel, health care and schools in a country that is not prepared for these extremes. Many homes, small businesses and even public buildings, including hospitals, do not even have air conditioning, a reflection of how unusual this heat is in the country best known for rain and mild temperatures.
Rachel Ayers, the Met Office’s meteorologist, said Tuesday’s highs would be “unprecedented.”
Much of England, from London in the south to Manchester and Leeds in the north, is under the country’s first warning of “extreme” heat, meaning there is danger of death even for healthy people.
Many train lines are not in service
Millions of Britons woke up to the hottest night ever in the country. The Met Office said provisional figures showed that the temperature remained above 25 ºC overnight in some parts of the country for the first time.
Average July temperatures in the UK range from daily highs of 21 ºC to night lows of 12 ºC, and few homes or small businesses have air conditioning.
People gathered on the beach in Bournemouth, England, on Tuesday, although temperatures according to officials could be dangerous. (Steve Parsons / PA / The Associated Press)
Prior to Tuesday, the highest temperature recorded in Britain was 38.7 C, a record just set in 2019.
Electric fans cooled the traditional mounted troops of the family cavalry as they guarded central London in heavy ceremonial uniforms. Other guards reduced their duties. The capital’s Hyde Park, usually occupied with hikers, was strangely quiet, except for the long queues for swimming in Serpentine Lake.
“I go to my office because it’s nice and cool,” geologist Tom Elliott, 31, said after bathing. “I rode my bike instead of taking the subway.”
London Luton Airport had to close its runway due to heat damage. The airport said Tuesday it was “fully operational,” but warned that several train routes leading to the city were out of service due to the heat. Trains run at low speed out of concern for wrinkled rails, or not at all.
London’s King’s Cross station, one of the busiest railway hubs in the country, was empty on Tuesday, with no trains on the busy east coast line connecting the capital with the north and Scotland.
From the British weather agency, at 13:30 local time:
Many places around the country have broken the previous temperature record of 38.7 ° C, with temperatures exceeding 40 ° C for the first time 👇 pic.twitter.com/RRXFBykGbJ
– @metoffice
The British Supreme Court closed visitors after an air conditioning problem forced him to move the hearings online. The British Museum was scheduled to close soon.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the British transport infrastructure, some of which dates back to the Victorian era, “was not built to withstand this kind of temperature, and it will be many years before we can replace the infrastructure. with the kind of infrastructure it could. “
Fatal consequences in the United Kingdom, Europe
At least five people were reported to have drowned across the UK in rivers, lakes and reservoirs while trying to cool off.
Climate experts warn that global warming has increased the frequency of extreme weather events, with studies showing that temperatures in the UK are likely to reach 40 C is now 10 times higher than in the pre-industrial era. Drought and heat waves linked to climate change have also made forest fires more difficult to fight.
Tuesday sees a view of the low water levels at Lake Roadford in Devon, England. The average temperature in July in Britain is 21 ºC (Andrew Matthews / PA / The Associated Press)
The head of the UN weather agency expressed hope that the heat gripping Europe would serve as a “ton of attention” for governments to do more about climate change.
“I hope that in democratic countries, too, such events will have an impact on voting behavior,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.
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An unusually warm and dry climate has gripped large areas of Europe since last week, causing forest fires from Portugal to the Balkans and causing hundreds of heat-related deaths.
In the Gironde region of southwestern France, fierce forest fires spread through dry pine forests such as scab, thwarting efforts to extinguish more than 2,000 firefighters and water-bombing aircraft.
More than 37,000 people have been evacuated from homes and summer vacation sites since the fires broke out on July 12 and burned 190 square kilometers of forests and vegetation, Gironde authorities said.
A third smaller fire broke out on Monday afternoon in the Medoc wine region north of Bordeaux, which further fueled firefighting resources. Five campsites caught fire in the beach area of the Atlantic coast, where flames wreaked havoc around the Arcachon sea basin, famous for its oysters and resorts.
But weather forecasts offered some consolation, with heat wave temperatures expected to drop along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday and the possibility of rain reaching the end of the day.