'I've never seen anything like this': 180 sheep fall to death due to dry soil from European heatwave

Around 180 sheep were killed after slipping off a steep Alpine cliff edge, said German authorities – linking the deaths to the heatwave gripping much of Europe.

An official in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria said the accident happened on Sunday when around 300 sheep struggled on a trail with soil completely dried out in the recent hot weather.

Local official Peter Reindl told the dpa news agency that the majority of the animals lost their footing on the cracked mountain pass and fell 325 ft to their deaths.

He said about 450 sheep are usually put to pasture in the mountains in the summertime and occasionally one falls off the edge, but the loss of so many at once was unprecedented.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

The dead sheep were discovered Monday by shepherds. The remaining animals have since been taken to a safer part of the mountain range.

The heatwave raging across western and central Europe began to ease on Sunday, as weather alerts were cut back and wildfires in Spain were slowly brought under control.

At least seven deaths in France, Italy and Spain over the past week have been linked to the searing temperatures.

Meteorologists say a weakening of the high-level jet stream is increasingly causing weather systems to stall and leading summer temperatures to soar. Five of Europe’s hottest summers in the last 500 years have happened in this century.

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded, the EU’s satellite agency announced on Tuesday.

Data provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) showed European average temperatures were more than 2C above normal. Temperatures were 6-10C above normal over most of France, Germany and northern Spain during the final days of the month.

Additional reporting by agencies