H ealth and fire warnings have been issued in countries across southern Europe, with temperatures expected to exceed 40C in some places over the weekend. Italy, Greece, France, Spain and Portugal are among the countries affected - with the Spanish city of Seville forecast to hit 42C.

Southern Europeans braced Saturday for their first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world's fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red.

Record-breaking temperatures for the time of year are likely to occur across a large part of western Europe in the coming days as a historically unprecedented heatwave intensifies. Temperatures will widely exceed 40°C across Spain and parts of France,