Extreme heat grips Southern Europe as Spain sends toxic alerts and France shuts reactors

A Spanish industrial fire prompted toxic alerts, while France shut nuclear reactors to protect river levels. In Greece, severe wildfires have claimed five lives, marking one of its worst environmental crises in a decade as extreme heat continues across the region.

When temperatures soar across Asia's cities, informal workers face a choice: risk their health or lose their income. For many, the effects don't end when the workday is over.

Europe is Earth’s fastest-warming continent, heating at more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service

03 August 2026 An intense heatwave is affecting much of Romania, with red, orange, and yellow weather warnings in place as temperatures are expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius in western parts of the country. The heat will gradually spread south and east, while meteorologists expect tropical nights across most of Roma

Rhine and Danube levels have dwindled over an unusually hot and dry summer, with repeated bouts of high-pressure blocking moisture-bearing clouds from replenishing watersheds.

The Danube River, which runs through 10 countries from southwestern Germany to the Black Sea, has receded to never-before-seen lows along much of its course, exposing rocks, sand bars and old shipwrecks that have rarely been seen before.