6:26 a.m. – Nearly 100 hectares burned in Maine-et-Loire
Around 97 hectares of forest burned in Maine-et-Loire, a department on red “heatwave” alert, and firefighters were still fighting the fire on Wednesday night, we learned from the prefecture.
The alert was given in the afternoon in the town of Saint-Macaire-du-Bois, around fifty km east of Cholet. Some 45 engines and 147 firefighters remained mobilized overnight. One of the sides of the fire was able to be fixed, indicated Cyrille Lefeuvre, chief of staff of the prefecture, contacted shortly before midnight. “Over the last hour, the fire covered only one hectare,” he said.
6:17 a.m. – 58 departments on red alert
Fifty-eight departments will be placed on red alert for heat waves from this noon, Météo France announced.
Thirty-one other departments will still be on orange heatwave alert, according to the Météo France bulletin. Red vigilance is extended to the departments of Aisne, Somme, Nord and Pas-de-Calais.
6:12 a.m. – Air conditioning breakdown in hospital
A breakdown of the air conditioning and refrigeration systems paralyzed the operating theater at Beauvais hospital (Oise) for more than 24 hours, a technical failure which “appears linked” to the heatwave, the hospital said on Tuesday evening.
This breakdown of the “cold units”, which occurred during the night from Sunday to Monday, forced the hospital to redirect or transfer patients requiring urgent interventions to other establishments. In particular, the birthing rooms were temporarily closed.
Non-urgent procedures have been rescheduled, according to the hospital, which did not specify the number of patients affected in total.
6:01 a.m. – Two teenagers drown in a lake in Belgium
Two 17-year-old teenagers drowned while bathing in an artificial lake in eastern Belgium, while the country was experiencing a heatwave, the Liège prosecutor’s office said.
The tragedy occurred at the end of the afternoon, when a group of five young people wanted to defy the ban on swimming in the “Blue Lake”, a water reservoir formed in an old disused quarry, in Sprimont. Two of them failed to return to shore.
