Europe's HOT

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Europeans Swelter in Near-Record Heat
Tue Aug 5, 2:38 AM ET Add World - AP to My Yahoo!

By PAMELA SAMPSON, Associated Press Writer

PARIS - A heat wave smothering parts of Europe forced French authorities to spray down the walls of a nuclear reactor with water and led British rail operators to halt some trains for fear the tracks would buckle.

Much of France has been sweltering for weeks, with temperatures reaching 106 in southwestern Bordeaux on June 21 and then again on Monday in Castelsarrazin in southwest France. But the worst may be yet to come.

It's been one of Europe's worst heat waves and dry spells in years. Authorities on the Iberian peninsula scrambled to put out stubborn, deadly forest fires, but officials said the worst could be yet to come.

"The coming days could approach or beat this maximum," said Dominique Escale of Meteo France, the French national weather service (news - web sites). "This is a very, very hot summer."

Temperatures in Paris, which averages 75 in August, reached 98.6 on Monday.

In eastern France, technicians tried spraying the inner walls of a structure housing a nuclear reactor with cold water. They were trying to figure out if the technique helped lower the temperature inside the structure, which houses one of two reactors at the plant in Fessenheim, on France's border with Germany.

"The idea is to wet the reactor walls on the side that's most exposed to sunlight," said Joseph Sanchez, the plant's assistant director. "We can't say if it works yet."

Temperatures at the plant rose to 119, two degrees short of the point requiring an emergency shutdown. Utility officials say the weather poses no danger to the operation of the plant, which can withstand much higher temperatures.

"Nothing would probably happen even at 100 or 150 degrees (Celsius)," said Anne Laszlo, a spokeswoman for Electricite de France.

German power provider E.On said Monday that two nuclear power plants have reduced output by up to 50 percent over the last few weeks because of high temperatures. The plants, in central and southern Germany, do not have cooling towers that lower river water temperature before it is used.

The German Weather Service said daytime temperatures could go as high as 104 on Wednesday in parts of the south, which would be just short of the record of 104.4 set in 1983.

German authorities said that ozone levels were reaching critical levels and advised Germans to restrict any strenuous exercise to the morning hours. Ozone can build to dangerous levels on hot, sunny summer days when sunlight bakes emissions from cars and power plants, causing a chemical reaction that forms ground-level ozone. High ozone levels can exacerbate problems for people with breathing and heart ailments.

Weather forecasters in Britain said that the all-time British high of 98.8, set in 1990, could fall in the coming days.

"It's possible that on Wednesday we could have the highest temperature ever recorded in Britain," said Elizabeth Anett of Press Association's WeatherCenter. "It's going to be incredibly hot."

The heat forced train operators to impose speed restrictions on some lines Monday because high temperatures can cause rails to buckle. Train travel within London, and from the capital to Birmingham in central England, were among the routes affected.

Forest and brush fires fanned by heat, high winds and drought in France, Spain and Portugal have killed more than a dozen people.

The Portuguese government declared a state of disaster Monday, while 3,000 firefighters struggled to contain the country's worst forest fires in decades. At least nine people there have died.

Forest fires in the foothills of the French Riviera last week killed four people, and another man died on the French island of Corsica when he tried to put out a fire on his property. In Spain, firefighters have been battling intense fires since Thursday.

The Spanish National Weather Service said Monday the heat wave was the worst since 1995 and was likely to continue all week. Seven deaths have been blamed on the heat, all in southern Andalusia.

The highest recorded temperature in Spain was 114.4 over the weekend, at the airport in Cordoba.

Even Finland, the European Union (news - web sites)'s northernmost country, was not spared some discomfort. This summer's record temperature was 92, approaching the hottest-ever recorded temperature of 96.6 set in 1914.

A country of thousands of lakes, Finland also saw a spike in the number of people who drowned — at least 45 — during the heat wave, which lasted 26 days in some areas.