欧洲遭遇创纪录热浪，数千万人面临极端高温

A major heat wave is shattering records across Europe, leaving tens of millions of people under sweltering conditions. France topped a record for the country's hottest day ever for the 2nd consecutive day, and the UK and Spain both hit record highs for the month of June. Stephanie Tsai has our report. In London today, the temperature hit 96 degrees. An outdoor workers felt it awful, to be honest. It's horrible this. These kids didn't seem to mind the heat much.

A spray down was also in order for this crowd, waiting in line to attend a concert in Milan, Italy. At the Vatican, the faithful fluttered their fans while Pope Leo held his weekly audience, and while the beer may still be cold in Munich. In the kitchens, the chickens weren't the only ones roasting. I'm from Just run quickly to the sink and splash her face with cold water then drank loads of water. That's our little secret today.

More than a dozen countries in Europe were under high heat alerts in the 2nd major heat wave for the continent in 2 months. A heat dome, a high pressure system trapping hot air is covering the region, says Claire Barnes, an extreme weather and climate researcher at Imperial College in London. It means that it's drawing warm air up from North Africa, from the Sahara, and that's why we have this really intense heat, and it's very slow moving, and it means there's kind of no wind, no breeze for respite.

With temperatures reaching more than 110 degrees. France has been on the front line. Heat-related deaths are climbing, including 40 drownings in recent days that authorities attribute to people seeking relief in rivers and lakes. My friend who lives there said there's no way she's going to be swimming in here because it's so dirty, but it's hot. I'm going to risk it. Earlier this week, police in Paris tried to stop young people from turning a footbridge into a diving board.

The Eiffel Tower and the Louvre were shut down early, and the classic gray zinc roofs that cover much of the skyline are making things unbearable for those living in attic units. It's been the worst week that we've had in this apartment. Air conditioning is a rarity across Europe, making fans a hot commodity. It's pure coincidence that I have this electric fan because someone left it aside. Everything was gone in less than 30 minutes.

For decades, many European countries didn't need air conditioning since extreme heat was relatively rare, but more recently, environmental concerns, energy costs, and health worries have all been part of the resistance to AC. Oscar Bruce works on urban climate and health at the University College London. Adding air conditioning, uh, on the energy grid would require basically uh more energy to be produced when um during cooling hours, which is something that the EU has been trying to prevent, to, to, to not. have to rely, for example, on fossil fuels to cope with uh this energy demand.

Europe is the world's fastest warming continent. Temperatures have been increasing a