Western Europe measured the extent of the damage after the passage of a scorching wave accompanied by devastating fires, in particular in the south-west of France where President Emmanuel Macron was going on Wednesday, and in Brittany, while that the Spanish Prime Minister mentioned the figure of "more than 500" heat-related deaths.

In Portugal, 2,000 firefighters continued to fight the fires on Tuesday afternoon.

And the temperature for the first time exceeded 40 ° C in the United Kingdom on Tuesday.

This multiplication is a direct consequence of the climate crisis according to scientists, with greenhouse gas emissions increasing in intensity, duration and frequency.

The point in pictures on the apocalypse in Europe.


Directed by:

Olivier JUSZCZAK

  • On Tuesday, the mercury exceeded a level never reached in the United Kingdom with 40.2°C at Heathrow airport in west London, then 40.3°C in Coningsby, a village in the northeast of England, according to the Met Office weather agency.

  • At least a hundred firefighters also fought against a fire that ravaged the village of Wennington in east London.

  • The fire spread over an area of ​​40 hectares, including homes, farm buildings and garages.

    “I was sunbathing in my garden and a black cloud came,” said Ciar Meadows, a 30-year-old housewife.

  • In Spain, where the extreme heat wave has been raging for almost ten days, forest fires continued to rage on Tuesday, especially in the province of Zamora (northwest).

  • According to regional authorities, nearly 6,000 people had to be evacuated because of the flames which destroyed several thousand hectares of vegetation.

  • “So far this year there have already been 11 large fires that we have had to fight, this is almost double the average recorded in the last 10 years,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recalled during a visit. of an area affected by the fires.

  • In Portugal, 2,000 firefighters continued to fight the fires on Tuesday afternoon.

  • The two most worrying forest fires are located in the far north of the country.

    One of them mobilized nearly 800 firefighters on Tuesday and led to the evacuation of three villages.

  • Greek civil protection on Tuesday called for the evacuation of eight villages and localities at the foot of Mount Penteli, north of Athens, threatened by a major fire.

  • Some 500 firefighters, 120 vehicles, nine planes and ten helicopters were deployed to try to extinguish the fire which affected the suburbs of Penteli, Pallini, Anthousa and Gerakas, where some 90,000 people live.

  • In France, the fire started Thursday by sparks at the passage of a freight train in the Montagnette massif, south of Avignon, was fixed overnight by the firefighters, who continued on Tuesday to flood the edges to avoid a new recovery.

  • Since July 12, two fires have been burning in Gironde where 20,600 hectares of forest have been destroyed.

  • The fire in the town of Landiras ravaged 13,600 hectares of forest and that of La Teste-de-Buch 7,000.

  • During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, no new evacuations were ordered and no casualties were reported.

    Since the start of the fires, nearly 36,750 people have been evacuated, and campsites have been devastated by the flames.

  • With 300 hectares destroyed in recent hours, "the results are rather positive, the situation improved during the night but the two fires are still not fixed", indicated to the press the lieutenant-colonel Arnaud Mendousse, a carrier word of the Gironde firefighters.

  • In Brittany, the fire which has ravaged hundreds of hectares of moorland in the Monts d'Arrées since Monday was still ongoing on Wednesday morning but its progress was slowing down, said the Finistère prefecture.

  • A total of 500 people had to be evacuated because of the fire that broke out in the town of Brasparts (Finistère), in a natural site known for its biodiversity.

    With the heat wave hitting Western Europe, many temperature records were broken in Brittany on Monday.

    More than 40°C were recorded in particular in northern Finistère, according to Météo France.

  • Aquitaine

  • Heat wave

  • Climate

  • Slideshow

  • Spain

  • Gironde

  • Greece

  • Fire

  • New Aquitaine

  • Portugal