Deadly record-breaking heatwave continues to rock Europe

LARGE parts of Europe continued to swelter yesterday under a record-breaking heatwave that has already caused deadly forest fires, a crisis for many farmers and dangerously high ozone levels.

In Portugal, nine people have been killed in the worst wave of forest fires in recent history. With 15 out of the country's 18 regions affected, the government was preparing to announce a state of emergency to allow aid funds to be unblocked.

Fires were also raging in parts of southern and central Spain, where temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) were blamed for the deaths of at least seven people in recent days.

In France, the fires which killed five people last week have been extinguished, but attention was focussed on the deteriorating plight of livestock and cereal farmers whose livelihood is threatened by the drought now officially declared across more than half the country.

With 54 out of 98 departments restricting water usage, the government has stepped in to allow cattle and sheep to graze on land that is kept fallow under EU rules and to subsidise the transport of feed from less-affected areas.

In France - but also in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Spain and other countries - farmers were predicting a drastic fall in cereal and milk yields.

The price of chicken has gone up by more than 35% in Spain, as a result of the heat which has killed more than a million birds and led to dramatic weight loss in the rest, the French newspaper Liberation reported.

In Britain, forecasters were predicting that the country's previous record of 37.1 degrees Celsius - reached at Cheltenham in August 1990 - could be topped midweek, as London joins Paris, Madrid and Lisbon with temperatures in the high 30s.

Meteorologists said the heatwave was caused by an anti-cyclone firmly anchored over the western European land mass, which is holding back the rain-bearing depressions which in normal years make inroads into the continent from the Atlantic ocean.

Opinions differ over whether it can be attributed to longer-term climate change linked to the production of greenhouse gases.

The high temperatures were causing dangerous levels of ozone concentrations in several European cities and in the Paris region the authorities ordered speed restrictions and reduced bus fares to try to reduce the pollution.

In Switzerland the heat was being partially blamed for the large number of deaths this year in Alpine climbing accidents - 58 so far compared to 28 in the same period in 2002. Officials said the weather drew hikers higher into the mountains, while melting ice made large areas unstable.