Scalding sunshine brings Europe to its beaches — and its knees

EUROPE shimmered in a blistering heatwave yesterday, delighting holidaymakers but causing concern for farmers and power companies.

In Italy, where rivers have shrunk and crops withered over the past two months, churches in the worst-hit regions have held mass vigils. One priest plans to keep his two churches open day and night for three days of non-stop prayers.

"If Our Lord doesn't give us a hand then things are going to get really bad here," Don Angelo told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The head of Italy's civil protection body was quoted as saying that if there was no rain before the end of the month, the government would probably have to call a state of emergency.

Along certain stretches of the mighty Po river, the water level has fallen more than seven metres below normal, bringing all water traffic to a standstill.

The Italian government plans to launch a television campaign later this week to urge people to save water, while national electricity company Enel, seeking to avert a repeat of last month's blackouts as Italians cranked up air conditioners, issued advice on Monday on how to conserve power.

Elsewhere, Britain's heatwave was set to continue, with temperatures expected to reach 32°C in places today.

Britons baked under the year's hottest temperatures yesterday, reaching a sweltering 30.7°C.

Jersey, in the Channel Islands, notched 30.7°C, beating the previous high for the year of 30.5°C in Shepshed, Leicestershire, on June 22.

Elsewhere on the continent, Paris saw its hottest Bastille Day since 1945 as temperatures topped the 35°C mark, and weather forecasters predicted more of the same to follow.

Street vendors in the French capital were doing a roaring trade in bottled water, selling 25 centilitre bottles for €2 each to hordes of thirsty tourists in front of the Sacre Coeur basilica.

Swiss farmers have been forced to move hundreds of hungry cows from dried-out meadows in the low-lying cantons of Zurich and Schaffhausen to greener pastures in the mountainous Berner Oberland a step last taken in a 1976 drought.

Even the Nordic region has had a taste of the warm weather. Norway's capital was a relatively sweltering 27°C on Tuesday.

However, anyone wanting a respite from the heat could seek refuge in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, where temperatures were expected to reach just 7°C with rain.

Meanwhile in the United States, Hurricane Claudette crashed onto the Texas Gulf Coast yesterday with roaring wind and heavy rain, pounding the beaches with high waves and chasing some people to higher ground.

At Galveston, at the storm's northern edge, waves smashed over the 17-foot seawall that guards the city from the gulf.

No injuries have been reported.