Roads, shopping malls and city centres lay deserted under the searing heat, with many places looking like abandoned areas. Over the past week, Europe has endured its highest heatwave in living memory.
From Friday afternoon to Saturday evening, towns and cities across Germany resembled ghost towns. Most people did not step outside except for urgent needs or to go to work.
Germany recorded a new high temperature on Saturday. The weather service said 41.5 degrees Celsius was recorded at around 4:30pm in the Drevitz area of the Jerichower Land district of Saxony-Anhalt state.
Meteorologists say in a study that the use of fossil fuels and climate change are making European heatwaves more intense.
The climate-research network World Weather Attribution said in a study published on Friday that human-induced climate change was undoubtedly responsible for the ongoing heatwave across Europe. Such extreme weather events were rare even 50 years ago, the researchers said.
Although climate change is raising temperatures worldwide, its effect is comparatively greater in Europe. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Europe is currently the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising at almost twice the global average.
The World Meteorological Organization has warned of the heatwave’s major impact on health, agriculture and labour. Its spokeswoman, Clare Nullis, said: “Unfortunately, we will increasingly have to adapt to this kind of weather.”
More than 400 people are estimated to have died in Europe so far in this year’s intense heat, from heatstroke, excessive heat stress, the heatwave or drowning.
Since Friday, June temperatures in the central European countries of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have broken all previous records. Extreme temperatures have been recorded in various parts of Germany, particularly over the past two days.
According to Spain’s health ministry, more than a hundred deaths directly linked to record temperatures were recorded in June. The French government has also issued the highest alert in many administrative regions, where several people have died entering water to escape the heat.
Because of the intense heat, a Eurostar train from Brussels to Paris via Cologne, Germany, broke down. The train was carrying about 400 passengers, three of whom had to be hospitalised due to the excessive heat.
Two major events in Paris were cancelled over the weekend on health-risk grounds. Local authorities said the heatwave had filled hospitals with patients.
Meanwhile, although thousands gathered on Thursday night to attend the popular Dutch music festival “Defqon,” authorities issued an unprecedented “code red” alert because of the intense heat, and organisers were forced to cancel the festival at the last moment. The decision sparked anger among attendees, and police were deployed to control the situation.
In Germany too, several events including the Hamburg half marathon were cancelled on Saturday. New ticket sales for open-air swimming pools in Berlin and other cities were restricted due to overcrowding.
Berlin police said water cannon would be used in the city centre and the Charlottenburg area on Saturday and Sunday to give people some relief, spraying water from special vehicles to provide temporary respite from the heat. The German weather service said similar heat could persist.
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