Wildfire raging across southern Europe

Emergency services battled wildfires across swathes of southern Europe amid mass evacuations on Wednesday, as climate warnings sounded in London after Britain recorded its hottest day topping 40C.

A blaze fuelled by gale-force winds raged in mountains north of Athens, forcing hundreds including hospital patients to evacuate, and similar numbers fled in central Italy as gas tanks caught in a forest fire near the Tuscan town of Lucca exploded. 

Wildfires burned in several areas of Italy and 14 cities, including Rome, Milan and Florence, where the country’s highest heatwave is set to experience on coming Thursday. 

Portugal’s northern region’s Civil Protection commander Armando Silva said rising temperatures and strong winds would make it harder to fight the country’s largest wildfire, which has burned 10,000-12,000 hectares (38-46 square miles) since Sunday in and around the municipality of Murça. 

British engineers raced on Wednesday to fix train tracks that had buckled in the heat after firefighters, who in London endured their busiest day since World War Two on Tuesday, worked through the night to damp down wildfires.

A brutal heatwave settled over southern Europe last week, part of a currently developing global pattern of rising temperatures - widely attributed by scientists and climatologists to human activity - that is forecast to dump searing heat on to much of China into late August. 

Forecasters there said that temperatures were expected to hit 40C (104F) across a swathe of the north and centre this week. Strong winds were forecast to persist until Wednesday afternoon. 
ATHENS/LONDON, July 20 (Reuters)