UK heatwave – live: Drought declared across large part of England

A village of 800 people in Spain can only get water for four hours a day as Europe continues to swelter under a heatwave.

The unprecedented temperatures scouring the continent have caused the taps in Bonastre, just south of Barcelona, to run dry as almost 50 per cent of the continent is under a drought warning.

Residents only have access to water from 7am to 10am and 8pm to 11pm each day, reports Euronews.

Samuel Webb has the full story:

After weeks of hot and dry weather, drought could be declared for parts of England.

But what is a drought, and is the parched summer of 2022 a taste of the future?

Here are all your questions answered:

The RSPCS has shared some steps dog owners can take to ensure their dog stays cool during the summer months. Advice includes not leaving dogs in cars, giving dogs damp towels to lie on, and using pet safe suncream.

A “monster” wildfire raged for a third day in southwestern France on Thursday, ravaging forests and forcing 10,000 people to evacuate their homes.

With no let-up in scorching temperatures likely before the weekend, firefighters backed by water-bombing aircraft battled on many fronts, saying the massive fire could change direction at any moment.

“It’s an ogre, it’s a monster,” Gregory Allione from the French firefighters body FNSPF told RTL radio.

Valentine Dupy took photos of her house with her phone before being evacuated from Belin-Beliet, at the heart of the Gironde region “just in case something happens”.

“It was like an apocalypse. Smoke everywhere ... and planes throwing orange powder onto the fire.”

Firefighters said they had managed to save her village, transformed into a ghost town after police told residents to evacuate as the flames approached.

But the blaze reached the outskirts, leaving wrecked houses and charred tractors in its wake.

“We’ve been lucky. Our houses were saved. But you see the catastrophe all over there. Some houses could not be saved,” said resident Gaetan, pointing to houses burnt to the ground.

Support was on its way from across Europe, with 361 firefighters, as well as trucks and waterbombing aircrafts, expected to back up the 1,100 French firefighters already on the ground.

“We are still in the phase of (trying to) confine the fire, direct it where we want it, where there is less vegetation, where our vehicles can best position themselves ... so we can eventually fix it, control it and extinguish it,” said Matthieu Jomain, a spokesperson for the Gironde firefighers.

More than 60,000 hectares (230 square miles) have gone up in flames so far in France this year, six times the full-year average for 2006-2021, data from the European Forest Fire Information System shows.

French authorities said temperatures in the Gironde region would reach 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Thursday and stay high until Saturday.

Mr Sunak said: “For too long, water hasn’t had the attention that it deserves. We are living through some of the driest conditions in decades, and we need to make sure that measures to boost resilience to extreme weather conditions are part of our holistic plan for water - to protect its supply and clean it up.

“Water companies can and must step up to address leakage and mains bursts, which are contributing factors to consumer disruption including hosepipe bans. When it comes to enforcement, nothing is off the table.”

He added: “Our farmers are becoming increasingly concerned about crop failure and wildfires in these extreme conditions.

“We must make sure that we are incentivising them - through schemes like the Farming Transformation Fund and Farming Equipment and Technology Fund - to invest in water storage and technology like trickle irrigation to make more efficient use of water.

“I would also build the resilience of our water infrastructure, encouraging private investment and fast tracking approvals for alterations to reservoirs and water recycling facilities as well as new projects.”

Firefighters have warned they will not be able to attend all call-outs as the second deadly heatwave in weeks stretches services already at “crisis point”.

Senior staff from crews around the country told The Independent that unprecedented demand and a lack of resources meant crews are not properly equipped to respond to the scale of heat-related incidents caused by the climate crisis.

They also raised concerns that drought conditions could hamper their abilities to tackle wildfires if lakes and ponds can no longer be used to access water.

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The government has been accused of having no plan to deal with drought conditions that have seen record-breaking wildfires.

Millions of people in southern England are subject to hosepipe bans, farmers are concerned about their crops and natural habitats are under pressure as months of dry weather push the country towards dwindling water supplies, with another heatwave on the horizon.

It is only set to get worse, with the climate emergency expected to bring drier, hotter summers to the UK and, with them, the potential for more frequent droughts.

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