The UK’s highest maximum temperature for June was broken for the third day in a row on Friday, with a provisional figure of 37.3C recorded in Santon Downham, Suffolk – beating the previous record of 36.7C set on Thursday – as the country endured the worst heatwave ever recorded in western Europe. The Met Office said “temperatures are still rising”, with a red alert for heat remaining in place for London and south-east England for an unprecedented third consecutive day, while an amber alert covered most of central and eastern England. The UK Health Security Agency’s red heat-health alert, which warns of a significant risk to life even for healthy people, extended until 11pm on Friday and covered all of southern and central England, and an amber heat-health alert was in place for all of England until 9am on Sunday.
The extreme heat has already proved deadly elsewhere in Europe: in France, the number of toddlers who have died from heat-related causes has climbed to four, with more than 55 drownings linked to the conditions. On Friday, a hospital in Marseille said an 18-month-old child had died after being found in a car in a state of hyperthermia. Earlier this week, a three-year-old boy in a Paris suburb was found dead after climbing into a car and becoming trapped when the child lock was activated, and the bodies of two children aged two and four were found in their family’s car. France’s sports minister, Marina Ferrari, said on Friday that at least 55 people had drowned, up from 40 earlier in the week. “By yesterday night we were at 55, but we fear that the situation may worsen,” she told broadcaster Franceinfo.
“UK June heat record broken third day running as Toby Perkins warns of likely deaths and says government falls 'far short'”
Scientists have described the heatwave as the most severe and widespread ever, leaving nearly half of the region’s 850 largest cities facing unprecedented heat stress, and said the extreme temperatures had been made possible by the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning.
In the UK, the chair of parliament’s environmental audit committee, Toby Perkins, warned that “we will likely see a significant number of deaths as a direct result of the current heatwave” and said the government’s plans to protect people fall “far short of what is needed” according to its independent climate advisers. Perkins demanded answers from the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, on how the government planned to tackle overheating in buildings, establish maximum workplace temperatures, prescribe air conditioning for vulnerable people, and change school timetables. The Climate Change Committee has warned for more than a decade that the UK’s plans are inadequate, estimating that 92% of existing homes will overheat within about 20 years. “Taking action carries a significant cost,” Perkins said. “But the cost of doing nothing is far, far greater.”