Europe faces another day of extreme heat after more temperature records set 

Europe is experiencing another day of extreme heat with at least 101 million people expected to face temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), including 50 million in France and 18 million in Germany, according to calculations by the AFP news agency.

On Thursday, maximum temperatures are expected to surpass 30C (86F) for more than 380 million people across Europe, representing nearly two-thirds of the population, according to an analysis based on forecasts from the German weather service and 2025 population projections from the Joint Research Centre.

The figures broadly align with projections by the Austrian NGO Klimadashboard, and are up from Wednesday, when the German weather service said 94 million people were affected by temperatures exceeding 35C.

The heat will also surpass 30C for 70 million people in Germany, 48 million in Italy and 38 million in Britain.

Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands will also be affected by the heatwave searing much of Western Europe since last weekend, as will people in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

In mainland France, about 63 million people are expected to experience temperatures of more than 30C. The French weather agency put three-quarters of the country under a red alert for extreme heat starting at midday on Thursday until midday Friday.

In the usually temperate Brittany region of northwest France, a heat-related equipment failure knocked out power to tens of thousands of households that had to endure without electric fans.

In the Paris region, a three-year-old was found dead in a car, the third such death of a child this week. Parents found the boy in “the car outside their home”, police said. Civil defence confirmed his death in the town of Saint-Gratien in the Paris suburbs.

In Spain, the heatwave could be linked to 212 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday, according to estimates from a public institute. The MoMo monitoring system compiles daily death statistics in Spain and compares them with the levels forecast, based on historical records.

It also incorporates external factors, such as weather data from the national weather agency AEMET, to assess likely causes of mortality spikes.

Its data registered an excess mortality of 98 deaths for the same four days of 2025, during what was the hottest summer on record in a country on the front line of climate change.

The number of heat-related deaths in Spain between May 16 and September 30 last year hit 3,832, an 87.6-percent increase from the same period in 2024, according to MoMo data.

Mainland Spain this week recorded its highest daily average temperatures in June since at least 1950, with Monday’s figure of 28.08C followed by 28.17C on Tuesday.

Those two days also marked the highest average minimum temperatures for June since 1950, with 20.14C recorded on Monday and 19.81C on Tuesday. These so-called “tropical nights” make sleep challenging and can threaten public health.

The weather sparked the highest alert in parts of northern Spain, including Cantabria and the Basque Country, which are usually spared the harshest heat but where temperatures soared past 40C.

Most weather alerts had been lifted on Thursday, with the lowest yellow level in force in the north.