The UK recorded its highest June day, with temperature of 36.1C recorded in Hampshire. France recorded its hottest day ever, breaking the record set the day before. The country’s national heat index, an average of the day- and night-time highs measured at 30 weather stations across France, hit 30C (86F).
Arsalan Bukhari and Naila Tabbasum report from Delhi:
Outside, the temperature has passed 41C (105.8F). Inside Sakshi Katyal’s city apartment, the air conditioner is blasting but it does little to relieve the stress of balancing housework and helping her five-year-old log in on a laptop to online classes. Her daughter’s school closed in May and Katyal is not clear when it will reopen. Probably not till the autumn.
Schools across Delhi and in about half of India’s 28 states have been ordered to close from mid-May until the end of June, when in many places the summer break starts. There is no official record of closures in past years but the Guardian has spoken to school officials who say the number of days schools are shut for because of the heat has risen sharply. The impact on families, especially on working women, has been huge.
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India is facing increasingly intense spells of extreme heat, with this year’s heatwaves beginning as early as April. Hundreds of thousands of parents in India are struggling with managing jobs and children as lives are disrupted by prolonged school closures linked to the high temperatures. And as childcare disproportionately falls to women, it is women who are bearing the brunt.
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The climate crisis is a serious health crisis. From the report:
Rising temperatures are turning cities across south and south-east Asia into places where workers can no longer recover from the heat. A new report by US-based People’s Courage International (PCI), using research in Delhi, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Jakarta and Quezon City, has found hotter nights, combined with the urban heat island effect – the trapping of heat inside dense cities – are leaving millions of informal workers exhausted before a new workday even begins.
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The crisis is worsening in south Asia as climate change is predicted to triple the chance of pre-monsoon heatwaves, such as a 15-day one that turned deadly last month. Scientists say night-time temperatures are rising faster than daytime temperatures across much of the region, reducing the hours people once relied on to recover from extreme heat.
Across Asia, the International Labour Organization estimates that more than 70% of the workforce are exposed to excessive heat at some point during their jobs, with informal workers among the most vulnerable. This has a big impact in countries like India, where nearly 90% of workers are employed in the informal economy.
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The climate crisis driving a health crisis is rapidly reshaping everyday life. From the report:
An intense and prolonged heatwave has been causing misery for millions across Pakistan and India. In southern Pakistan throughout April and May, temperatures have risen far above seasonal norms. In Sindh, daytime temperatures have frequently crossed 44C to 46C, forcing residents indoors during peak afternoon hours and severely affecting outdoor labourers, transport workers and farming communities.
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The strain is also becoming visible in local healthcare facilities. Dr Suresh Kumar, who heads the children’s ward at Ibrahim Hyderi government hospital, said the number of children visiting the outpatient department has risen sharply since the last week of April. “On normal days, we would see around 50 to 60 children,” he said. “Now the number has crossed 200 daily.”
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The World Weather Attribution group has looked at the current extreme heat in Pakistan and India and found that “human-caused climate change approximately tripled the probability of an event like this happening, making it no longer exceptional in today’s climate. The same heat event would have been about 1C cooler in a pre-industrial climate.”
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From The Guardian (5 Jul 2025): How chefs, street performers and cheesemongers struggled to get their jobs done in record-busting temperatures.