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Poland, Czechia and Slovakia are braced for record temperatures of over 40C as a heatwave linked to hundreds of deaths in western Europe spreads east.
More than 191 million people in Europe faced temperatures of at least 35C on Sunday, with extreme heat warnings in Germany, Czechia, Poland and Hungary.
Poland’s all-time temperature record of 40.2C from 1921 could be broken on Sunday.
The Polish government’s security agency sent out text messages urging people to “avoid the sun and strenuous activity”, drink water and wear hats throughout the weekend. Multiple cities set up water curtains to help residents keep cool in the heat.
The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute said it expected temperatures to exceed 41C “by quite a bit”.
Czechia’s all-time record of 40.6C was recorded on Saturday. Temperatures did not drop below 20C at more than 100 meteorological stations overnight. But the institute said Sunday would be even hotter.
“Yesterday’s record will most definitely be broken again,” it said. It also expected further records for the warmest night ever to be broken on Sunday night.
Night-time records were also broken in Germany, with Bautzen in eastern Saxony reporting an overnight minimum temperature of 29.4C. The Berlin police used water cannon to help residents of the capital cool off on Saturday and will repeat the operation on Sunday. German rail operator Deutsche Bahn advised against all non-essential travel over the weekend.
In Slovakia, temperatures above 39C were reported in the south-west of the country, with the all-time record of 40.3C, set in 2007, likely to be beaten on Sunday or Monday. The country could see three consecutive days of temperatures above 40C for the first time since records began in 1871, forecasts show.
Denmark had on Saturday registered its highest temperature since measurements began in 1874, with 36.6C north of Odense.
Meanwhile, France has begun counting the death toll of its heatwave.
The French national public health agency said that between 24 and 27 June, 1,000 additional deaths were recorded compared with figures in previous months. These figures were provisional and were expected to rise significantly. The sharpest increase in deaths related to people dying at home, particularly in the Île-de-France region that includes Paris and its suburbs. The majority of deaths were among people over 65, but younger people were also affected.
“This serves as a reminder of the need for measures of solidarity towards people who are isolated or experiencing profound loneliness, including in highly urbanised areas,” the health agency said in a statement.
Philippe Juvin, an emergency doctor and MP for the rightwing Les Républicains party, said the final death toll in France would be very high. He said on Sunday there were likely to be people still in their homes in a coma, or who had died, who might not be discovered until next week. The French prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said hospitals and emergency services would remain under pressure for the coming days.
Marine Tondelier, the leader of the Greens, said “all light must be shed” on the “very high death toll” and political conclusions must be taken for action on the climate crisis.
The French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said ambulance services responded to more than 122,000 callouts during the hottest period of the heatwave.
Preliminary figures in Spain showed at least 327 deaths that could be linked to the heat between last Sunday and Thursday.
A large part of northern France was also hit by violent electrical storms and high winds, which caused several injuries, as emergency services attended to fallen trees on roads and flooded homes.
Lightening in the Aisne area sparked several fires, including one in Laon, where five people were injured. Storms caused electricity outages, and more than 60,000 homes were without electricity on Sunday morning.
One person died in Belgium overnight when a tree fell on his vehicle just outside Brussels, media said, after violent storms hit much of the country.
