Londoners urged not to travel as heatwave engulfs Europe

The UK Met Office has issued an amber extreme heat warning from Sunday through Tuesday as temperatures are likely to top the country’s 2019 record temperature of 38.7 degrees Celsius (101.7 degrees Fahrenheit). , which represents a risk for passengers.

“Due to the exceptionally hot weather expected in the coming week, customers should only use London’s transport network for essential journeys,” Transport for London (TfL) chief operating officer said. andy sir said.

Temporary speed restrictions will be introduced on London Underground and rail services “to keep everyone safe”, Lord added, urging commuters to “carry water at all times”.

Extremely high temperatures can damage power lines and signaling equipment. TfL has said it will try to keep services running smoothly and use more inspections to ease the impact of extreme heat.

Regular temperature checks of the tracks will be carried out to prevent bending or warping, TfL said in a statement. The network will also check air conditioning units throughout the metro network and air cooling systems in double-decker buses in the capital.

Motorists have also been encouraged not to drive during the hottest periods of the day.

‘There are lives in danger’

The UK Met Office has said that people’s lives are at risk as temperatures could reach 40°C (104°F) early next week.

issued its first extreme heat red alert for parts of the country, including London and Manchester, calling the alert “a very serious situation”.

“If people have vulnerable family members or neighbors, now is the time to make sure they are putting the right measures in place to be able to cope with the heat because if the forecast is what we think it will be in the red alert zone, then the lives of people is at risk,” said Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge.

The UK Health Security Agency has also raised its health warning for heat from level three to level four, the equivalent of a “national emergency”.

The UK Met Office has issued its first red warning for exceptional heat, warning people of the dangerous health impacts the weather could have.

Forest fires devastate Spain, France and Portugal

Elsewhere in Europe, wildfires devastated parts of Spain, France and Portugal on Friday in the heat blisterburning forests and causing widespread evacuations.

More than 400 people were evacuated from Mijas, a picturesque town in Malaga, southern Spain, when a new forest fire broke out. Reuters reported. Some 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) away, beachgoers in Torremolinos saw smoke rising near coastal hotels. The Catalan authorities suspended sports and camping activities in some 275 towns and villages to avoid fire risks.

Flames have also engulfed parts of Extremadura in western Spain, as well as the central region of Castilla y León. Wildfires threaten historic monuments, including a 16th-century monastery and a national park, while more than 18,500 acres of forest have been destroyed.

Firefighters work to extinguish the flames at Dune du Pilat, near Teste-de-Buch, in southwestern France.

Bomber planes and more than 1,000 firefighters have been deployed to southwestern France to contain two fires exacerbated by high winds and tinderbox conditions, Reuters reported. Elsewhere, 11,300 people have been evacuated since wildfires broke out near Dune du Pilat and Landiras, where around 18,000 acres of land have burned.

Temperatures were expected to exceed 40C in Portugal, where five districts were on red alert for extreme heat and more than 1,000 firefighters faced 17 forest fires, according to authorities.

There was an increase in heat wave-related casualties in Western Europe. Portugal recorded 238 excess deaths from July 7 to 13, according to the country’s health authority DGS. Spain recorded an excess of 237 deaths from July 10 to 14, according to estimates from the country’s Ministry of Health. The death toll could rise further as figures for July 15 have not yet been released. In June, an estimated 829 excess deaths were recorded in Spain due to heat, the Health Ministry said.

UK meteorologists have blamed the extreme temperatures on the climate crisis.

Climate crisis pushes extreme weather

Scenes of firefighters battling bushfires and roads melting in extreme heat may seem dystopian, but UK meteorologists say these phenomena are the result of continued climate crisis.

In the summer of 2020, meteorologists at the UK Met Office used climate projections to predict the weather forecast for July 23, 2050, and the results are surprisingly similar to your forecast for Monday and Tuesday.

“Today, the forecast for Tuesday is surprisingly nearly identical for much of the country,” said Simon Lee, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University in New York. tweeted on Friday, adding in a subsequent post that “what’s coming on Tuesday gives a glimpse of the future.”

“We had hoped that we would not get to this situation,” Nikos Christidis, a Met Office climate attribution scientist, said in a statement. statement. “Climate change has already influenced the likelihood of extreme temperatures in the UK. The chances of seeing 40C days in the UK could be up to 10 times more likely in the current climate than in a natural climate unaffected by human influence.”

The chance of going over 40 degrees is “increasing rapidly,” Christidis said.

CNN’s Manveena Suri, Angela Fritz and Rachel Ramirez contributed to this article.