PARIS — Paris, along with much of the rest of Europe, is scorching.
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Gripped by a record heatwave that has killed dozens of people, closed schools and knocked out power for thousands, the French capital has enforced early closures of iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum.
Temperature records across the continent have tumbled, with France experiencing its hottest day ever, Spain reaching its highest daily average since 1950 and the U.K. experiencing record heat for June. Extreme heat warnings were also in place in Germany, Poland and the Balkans.
“It’s been incredibly hot,” Matt Mcleavy from FairFax, Virginia, told NBC News in Paris, which he was visiting with his family.
His family is among many currently sweltering on this continent to experience just how ill-equipped Europe is for the soaring temperatures it increasingly faces.
The Airbnb he originally booked “had air conditioning, but the air conditioning was not anywhere near sufficient,” Mcleavy said Wednesday. “No one slept,” he said, so the family booked into a hotel. However, they then discovered the hotel didn’t have any air conditioning at all.
Their trip, he said, had ended up costing “a lot more” than planned. “But we’re going to think about that later. We’re enjoying Paris right now, trying to.”
Many Parisiens meanwhile were jumping into the city’s rivers, canals and other waterways for relief from the sweltering temperatures.
At Canal St. Martin, one of the city’s most popular, there was a festival-like atmosphere as thousands of people jumped, backflipped and dove from bridges into water that’s normally off limits to swimmers.
But for some this practice has proven deadly, with at least 48 people having died in France from drowning as they tried to escape the crippling heat, authorities said.
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