NATO called in as heatwave continues

EUROPE continued to swelter under a punishing heatwave as Portugal called in NATO to help combat deadly forest fires and France recorded its highest temperatures in more than half a century.

Thermometers in parts of Croatia, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal hit the symbolic 40-degree Celsius mark (104 degrees Fahrenheit), with no sign of relief until at least the start of next week and temperatures feared to soar to 42 Celsius in parts of Portugal.

"The current heat is totally exceptional - even for August," said Dominique Escale of France's national weather service Meteo France, which said the summer was the hottest on record in the country since 1949.

The searing heat has sparked devastating forest fires in Croatia, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Twelve have been killed in Portugal, 12 more in Spain and five others in France, four of them foreign holidaymakers.

With hundreds of firefighters struggling to control the blazes raging in central and southern Portugal, the government in Lisbon asked NATO to provide water-carrying aircraft and appealed to the European Union for financial aid.

The dog days are caused by an anti-cyclone which has anchored itself firmly over the west European land mass, holding off rain-bearing depressions over the Atlantic and funnelling hot air north from Africa.

The effects of the weather pattern are aggravated by the long dry period that preceded it, meteorologists said. Because the landscape contains little moisture, less of the sun's energy is taken up in creating evaporation.

Though there was no clear evidence putting the blame on global warming and greenhouse gas production, scientists at the World Meteorological Office point out that the world's 10 hottest recorded years have all taken place since 1987. "It doesn't contradict climate change, but it's certainly not the proof of it," said Martin Beniston, a researcher working with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Farmers in many countries are suffering the effects of severe drought and ozone concentrations have reached dangerous levels around some cities.

Officials in Croatia said it was suffering the worst drought in 50 years, with the country's largest river, the Sava, at its lowest level in 160 years.

Britain experienced its hottest day for 13 years yesterday and the temperature fell just short of being Britain's hottest day yet, weather forecasters said.

But the record may still be broken on Saturday as temperatures continue to soar.