Record-Breaking Heatwave Sweeps Europe, Leaving Dozens Dead
Why this matters: local context for readers following news across Pakistan and the region.
An unprecedented heatwave spreading across Western Europe has been blamed for multiple deaths, with several countries recording all-time temperature highs. Germany registered a new national temperature record on Saturday after thermometers reached 41.5 degrees Celsius at a weather monitoring station in Drewitz, eastern Germany. According to the country’s national weather agency, the reading surpassed the previous record of 41.3 degrees Celsius, which had been set only a day earlier in Saarbrücken in the southwest. Authorities across Germany issued extreme heat alerts covering nearly the entire country, while residents were urged to limit water consumption as pressure mounted on public resources. The heatwave also pushed temperatures to record-breaking levels in the Czech Republic and Denmark over the weekend. In the Czech Republic, meteorologists reported a new all-time high of 40.6 degrees Celsius at a weather station in Doksany, north of Prague, surpassing the previous national record of 40.4 degrees Celsius set in 2012 near the capital. Denmark also experienced its hottest day ever recorded, with temperatures climbing to 37 degrees Celsius in Odum, north of Aarhus. The country’s meteorological institute said this exceeded the previous record of 36.4 degrees Celsius that had stood since August 1975. Several other European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Switzerland, have also registered record-breaking temperatures for the month of June. The United Kingdom saw its June temperature record broken for the third consecutive day on Friday, according to the Met Office, as the intense heat disrupted schools, hospitals and business activity. Climate officials noted that Britain’s long-standing June temperature record of 35.6 degrees Celsius, set in 1976 and untouched for five decades, has now been surpassed on three straight days during the ongoing heatwave, highlighting the extraordinary scale of the extreme weather event affecting Europe. Firs