Grapes withered in Bordeaux vineyards, pollution worsened and drivers slowed their cars yesterday as France struggled through a fourth consecutive day of sweltering heat and smog alerts.
Radio and television increased their warnings for children and the elderly to stay out of the midday sun and for everyone to drink several litres of water daily.
Temperatures climbed towards 40 C in central and southern France, and reached 36C in Paris, where police lowered speed limits to reduce exhaust fume emissions.
In the south-western Bordeaux wine region, grapes on south-facing vines began to wither under the heat. Up to 20 per cent of the vines have been hit in some areas.
"We always have to look on the bright side," Mr Christian Sabate, a vintner from the Cote de Castillion vineyards, told TF1 television. "About 80 per cent or so of the grapes are still there and we need good weather for good quality."
Mr Emmanuelle d'Aligny, of the Chateau Angelus vineyard, said hot summers in the past, such as in 1976, had produced high quality wines. "The grapes are starting to mature so we need as much sunshine as possible. This sunny period means we can hope this will be a good year. The sun cuts down the quantity of the harvest but not as much as a natural disaster would."
About 15 French cities have declared pollution alerts and imposed spot checks on cars for pollution.
Some 20 Belgian children on holiday in Switzerland are still in hospital after suffering heatstroke in their train carriage, a clinic said yesterday. The children, aged between 10 and 18, part of a group of more than 200, were returning from southern Switzerland to Belgium on Monday when they were taken ill and brought to hospital in Bienne.
In England, a teenager died after he and a friend tried to swim across the Thames. Glen McCulloch (16) was taken from the river by passers-by who spotted him going under the water at Hinksey, near Oxford, on Monday afternoon. He was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and airlifted to the John Radcliffe Hospital but died early yesterday.
In Warwickshire, an 18month-old Japanese boy died after he fell from a canal boat while on holiday. Riku Motomura, from Putney, southwest London, was on holiday with his parents when he fell from the boat on the Oxford Canal, close to Harborough Parva, near Rugby.
In north Wales, rescuers yesterday recovered the body of a 12-year-old boy missing overnight at a resort.
An air and sea search operation was launched off Llandudno after the boy's father and a 13year-old were taken to safety by a lifeboat from a sandbank in the Conwy estuary. Jason Edward Butterworth was found dead yesterday morning, half a mile from the search area.
In Cyprus, the death toll from a record heatwave has reached 56. Almost all the victims are elderly, the Health Minister, Mr Christos Solomis, said yesterday, reporting six new deaths over the previous 24 hours.
The heatwave has seen temperatures above 40C for eight consecutive days and soaring up to 43C in Nicosia. Weather experts expect it to ease today.
Mr Solomis reported a reduction in new heatwave cases arriving at hospitals yesterday, adding that "we hope we are near the end" of the health crisis.
The island's previous longest heatwave was over five days in 1995, according to meteorological department's records.