Tag: Deaths

Fourth toddler dies in France as Europe’s brutal heatwave forecast to shift east

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The number of deaths in France linked to the heatwave has climbed to four toddlers and more than 55 drownings, as the brutally hot conditions sweeping Europe were forecast to shift east, choking 150 million people under 35C (95F) temperatures. Scientists said the heatwave was the most severe and widespread ever, leaving nearly half of the region’s 850 largest cities grappling with unprecedented heat stress. They said the extreme temperatures had been made possible by the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning. On Friday, a hospital in Marseille said an 18-month-old child had died in emergency care earlier in the week after he was found in a car in a state of hyperthermia.

A police source told the newspaper Le Figaro it was believed that the father, who works in the area, may have forgotten his son in the car when he was supposed to drop him off at daycare. Paris bans drinking alcohol in public as hospitals hit heatwave breaking point Read more Earlier this week, a three-year-old boy in a Paris suburb was found dead after climbing into a car and becoming trapped when the child lock was activated. Separately, the bodies of two children aged two and four were found in their family’s car in a residential car park. France’s sports minister, Marina Ferrari, said on Friday that at least 55 people across the country had drowned, up from the 40 reported earlier in the week. “By yesterday night we were at 55, but we fear that the situation may worsen,” she told the broadcaster Franceinfo.

View image in fullscreen France’s health minister, Stéphanie Rist, visits an emergency shelter during the heatwave in Paris. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images In the UK, the Met Office said the record for the hottest June day had been broken for the third day running. Provisional figures showed a temperature of 37.3C in Santon Downham, Suffolk, on Friday, beating the previous record of 36.7C set on Thursday. “And temperatures are still rising,” the forecaster added. As a Met Office red alert for heat remained in place for an unprecedented third day running for London and south-east England, while an amber alert covered most of central and eastern England, calls on the government to take more action grew louder. The UK Health Security Agency’s red heat-health alert was extended until 11pm on Friday and covered all of southern and central England, while an amber heat-health alert was in place for all of England until 9am on Sunday.

A red alert means there is a significant risk to life even for healthy people. Several hospitals have declared critical incidents and health experts warned emergency services were struggling to cope with the impacts of the heatwave. More than 1,000 schools in the UK have been closed or partially shut this week as poorly insulated buildings, many without air conditioning, overheated. Train passengers were urged to avoid non-essential travel on Friday, with many railway operators running reduced or slower services. Firefighters continued to tackle a wildfire in Derbyshire affecting an area of about 200 hectares (494 acres). View image in fullscreen A commuter tries to keep cool on the tube in London. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Shutterstock A hosepipe ban in Kent came into effect on Friday morning as South East Water said demand had increased in response to the heat, while late on Thursday Britain’s energy operator raised the alarm over power supplies needed to meet the extra demand for air conditioning and fans.

London ambulance service said it had responded to its highest number of life-threatening emergencies ever on Wednesday, and its chief operating officer, Craig Harman, said he expected “demand to grow day on day over the next couple of days”. Officials in Paris, where temperatures hit a June record of 40.9C on Wednesday, expressed similar concerns. “We are reaching a saturation point in hospital facilities,” the Paris police chief, Patrice Faure, told BFM TV as he announced a ban on drinking takeaway alcohol in the street. The head of the Association of French Emergency Doctors said there had been 55 deaths in the care of emergency health services in Paris in 24 hours. “Fifty-five is enormous,” Patrick Pelloux told Reuters. “Normally it’s three or four over 24 hours.”

Organisers of Paris Pride said they would postpone the event, probably until September, after police expressed concerns that the gathering of thousands of people could increase pressure on emergency services. The Pride march in Lyon as well as the Solidays music festival – aimed at raising funds to support programmes for people affected by HIV – were also called off. View image in fullscreen A man showers horses in Vienna. Photograph: Elisabeth Mandl/Reuters While the extreme temperatures were forecast to peak in France and Britain on Friday, the heat was expected to intensify in central and eastern Europe. In Belgium, a planned re-enactment of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, which regularly draws thousands of people, was cancelled, while in the Netherlands – where officials this week issued their first-ever red alert for heat – organisers cancelled the four-day techno music festival Defqon 1.

Source: Fourth toddler dies in France as Europe’s brutal heatwave forecast to shift east | Extreme heat | The Guardian

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.
Proverbs 31:30

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4 dead in Kentucky floods, governor declares state of emergency as search and rescue efforts underway

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Flooded residential street with submerged houses and vehicles

Widespread flooding across Kentucky has left at least four dead Saturday, prompting dozens of rescues after heavy rains wiped out bridges, inundated roads and flooded homes, with more significant rainfall on the way. Search and rescue efforts have continued throughout the day. Gov. Andy Beshear confirmed one person died in Jackson County and three others died in Madison County, including a man and woman who officials said drowned in a home that was underwater. A few hours earlier, Beshear said one motorist was killed after being swept away by flash flooding.

The governor declared a state of emergency to deploy more resources while announcing six to seven inches of rain deluged some areas of the state. A second round of rainfall is expected in the evening, and the governor urged people to be cautious and avoid unnecessary driving. ⛈️ Get your forecast on CNN Weather for iPhone “When it gets dark, it’s going to get even worse. So please, do not drive after dark if you can avoid it,” Beshear said. The severe weather is the latest in a history of catastrophic flooding in Kentucky, including deadly flash floods in early 2025 when more than a month’s worth of rain deluged much of the state in less than 24 hours. Dozens of people in Kentucky were killed in 2022 when unprecedented flooding inundated houses and swept away some from their foundations.

Precautionary evacuations are underway in one part of Bullitt County, which has been hit particularly hard by Saturday’s flooding. Officials there are closely monitoring a dam. A portion of the embankment has experienced a landslide, but the dam is holding and there’s no indication of an “imminent failure,” county emergency management officials said. The Millon Church in Richmond appeared to have collapsed, a video showed. Earlier in the day, the church announced its Saturday service was canceled due to the storm, adding: “Praying everyone stays safe.” Photos provided by police in Richmond – about 30 miles south of Lexington – show officers blocking off flooded streets and checking on stranded vehicles almost entirely submerged by rising floodwaters.

In Richmond, the two people who died from suspected drowning were trapped in the basement of a flooded home, police said. The residence was already underwater when police and fire officials arrived at the scene and could not make contact with anyone inside, police said. Rescue teams were later able to make entry and found the bodies of a man and woman, the agency said. Major intersections in the city are flooded, Richmond Mayor Robert Blythe said. He has been receiving calls from residents concerned about their neighbors whose homes are filling with rising water, Blythe told CNN. Richmond, to a certain extent, had been “spared” tragic weather affecting the surrounding area in recent years, the mayor said. But now, he added, “It appears to be our turn.”

Elsewhere in Madison County, “significant roads” are under water, with five search and rescue teams on the ground, the governor said. Five counties, including Bullitt, Madison, Meade, Mercer and Spencer have declared a local state of emergency, the governor’s office said. CNN has contacted those five counties under a local state of emergency for further information about the effects of the flooding. At least 12 roads across the state are flooded and cannot be accessed, while numerous bridges in counties like Jessamine have been “entirely wiped out,” the governor said. Dozens of rescues have been made, Beshear said. The state’s emergency management, state police and swift water rescue teams are responding to emergency requests in local communities, he added. “We know we’ve already lost at least a handful of Kentuckians. I don’t want to lose anymore,” he said, adding the storms have become “much more severe than most would have thought.”

Source: 4 dead in Kentucky floods, governor declares state of emergency as search and rescue efforts underway | CNN

And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
John 14:13

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