The government's Cobra Committee on Civil Contingencies gathered to discuss the escalating heat wave in the country, a spokesman for the British government said according to Bloomberg.
A Cobra meeting is called to discuss and coordinate a national or international crisis.
Previous examples of Cobra meetings have been due to the coronavirus, terrorist attacks and severe floods.
Meteorologists say that there is an 80 percent chance that the country's current heat record from 2019 of 38.7 degrees Celsius will be broken when the heat wave is expected to reach its peak on Tuesday.
Red warning
Temperatures are expected to rise over the weekend and the Met Office has issued a so-called "yellow warning" for heat over an area covering large parts of England and Wales.
The warning is valid from Sunday to Tuesday.
Daytime temperatures on Tuesday are expected to rise well above 30 degrees Celsius.
There is a 50 percent chance that the temperature will reach around 40 degrees, probably in the area from London to Scotland.
That's why the Met Office has issued its first red warning for extreme heat ever, reports Reuters.
The British Public Health Agency has increased its heat warning from level three to level four, which is considered a "national emergency".
People can die
Level four is reached “when a heat wave is so severe and / or prolonged that it becomes stressful for the country's care and nursing system.
"At this level, illness and death can occur among healthy and prosperous people, and not just in high-risk groups," it says on the authority's website.
The Met Office red warning covers an area from London to Manchester and up to the Vale of York.
- If people have vulnerable relatives or neighbors, it is now time to take appropriate measures to deal with the heat. If the forecast were to be as we fear.
In the red warning area, people's lives are in danger, says Grahme Madge, spokeswoman for the Met Office to Bloomberg and emphasizes:
- It is a very serious situation.
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Portugal, Great Britain and Spain - here are three countries where the extreme heat has struck.
Photo: Armando Franca / AP / TT