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A heatwave sweeping Europe was starting to peak in Germany on Thursday, with several open-air events cancelled and temperatures expected to top 40C through the weekend.<\/p>\n
Large parts of the country are already under “severe to extreme heat stress”, the German Weather Service (DWD) said.<\/p>\n
In the south-western town of Kirrlach temperatures reached 39.0 degrees on Thursday, according to provisional data from the DWD, just shy of the all-time June record of 39.6 set in 2019.<\/p>\n
Experts say that record could easily be broken over the weekend.<\/p>\n
In an unprecedented step, rail operator Deutsche Bahn warned customers to avoid travel and said it would refund any tickets booked up to June 30 due to a high risk of disruption from wildfires, heavy summer rain and thunderstorms.<\/p>\n
Several open-air sports events have been cancelled, including a half-marathon in Hamburg where authorities cited the risk of “an increased demand for emergency and rescue services”.<\/p>\n
The mercury will rise further in Germany starting Friday and on Saturday, when almost the entire country is forecast to bake under temperatures of 35 to 41C.<\/p>\n
Germany is not prepared to cope well with extreme heat, Martin Herrmann, head of the German Climate and Health Alliance, told AFP.<\/p>\n
“Although public awareness of the dangers of heat has clearly increased, Germany is still poorly prepared, or not prepared at all, for a heat-related disaster,” he said.<\/p>\n
Herrmann called for heat protection to be more firmly embedded in disaster and crisis management, “like flood protection”.<\/p>\n
On Thursday the Berliner Stadtmission charity was handing out kits with water, food and suncream to the homeless, “the first victims of the climate crisis”, according to charity spokeswoman Barbara Breuer.<\/p>\n
“It’s very difficult to move around in these temperatures,” 52-year-old homeless man Christian Bernardt told AFP while taking shelter from the heat at a Stadtmission-run centre.<\/p>\n
Hot weather over the past week has already led to a spike in fatal swimming accidents.<\/p>\n
Two men aged 20 and 22 drowned in lakes in Bavaria, and a 79-year-old woman died in the Baltic Sea. Other fatal swimming accidents occurred in lakes in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia.<\/p>\n
An investigation has also been launched after three teenagers died after swimming in a canal in North Rhine-Westphalia.<\/p>\n
The risk of forest fires is also rising sharply, according to the DWD, with the highest alert level already reached in parts of eastern Germany.<\/p>\n
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