Two children, 2 and 4, found dead in car as European heatwave soars to 40C

Two children, 2 and 4, found dead in car as European heatwave soars to 40C Two children aged two and four have died after being found unresponsive in a car in Carpentras, France, with temperatures soaring above 40C Two young children have tragically died after being found in a car as a heatwave sends temperatures soaring above 40C in Europe. The youngsters aged two and four are understood to have been found unresponsive in the family car, which was parked in a garage in the Bois de l'Ubac neighbourhood of Carpentras, France. Despite resuscitation attempts by emergency services, both children died. It is reported that the children entered the car without their 33-year-old mother being aware and then became trapped. Police were alerted at 1.10pm today to the incident and emergency services are still at the property this afternoon. The prosecutor of Carpentras, Hélène Mourges, told local media: "The cause of death is still under investigation, but the heatwave is the leading theory." France is facing a week of record-busting temperatures, sweltering under a heatwave with daytime highs above 40C. The national weather service, Meteo France, said that most of the country is entering what it described as a “plateau” of unrelenting heatwave conditions that isn’t forecast to start easing before Friday. Multiple towns in western and central France, including the major Atlantic port of Saint-Nazaire, experienced their hottest night ever Sunday to Monday, with an overnight low of 23.2C, Meteo France said. Paris baked through its hottest night for June, not getting below 24.2C — a half-degree hotter than the previous record from 2017. The weather service warned of even hotter nights: “This will continue through the end of the week, with heat levels never before recorded across more than three-quarters of the country on Wednesday and Thursday.” A growing swathe of France, spreading on Monday to more than half its regions, was under a “red alert” for heat, with larger areas forecast to suffer highs past 40C and nights not dropping below 20C. While in the UK, the weather office issued a rare “red” weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday. It said temperatures could exceed 37C in the shade, and rise to 40C, in parts of England and Wales. The Met Office said that as well as a risk to health, extreme temperatures could cause heat-sensitive equipment to fail, including power and mobile phone services. Dr Will Lang, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “We are forecasting extreme temperatures in the next few days, particularly on Wednesday and Thursday, when it looks like we’ll be seeing maximum temperatures into the high 30s. “But also we are stressing very high overnight temperatures which will be very uncomfortable for vulnerable groups, and very humid conditions as well.”