German highways are buckling under extreme heat as Central Europe sizzles

BERLIN (AP) — Authorities in Germany reported damage to highways and train cancellations on Saturday as a heat wave that baked western European countries this week moves to central and eastern parts of the continent.

With temperatures in Germany expected to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), even the country's famous highway, the Autobahn, was overwhelmed. In two places outside Berlin, the concrete of the A2 burst due to the high temperatures and the highway had to be closed. Other highway damage was also reported across the country, according to German daily Bild.

Train operator Deutsche Bahn and other rail companies advised against all nonessential travel on long-distance and regional trains this weekend.

“Germany’s transportation infrastructure is being severely affected by the record-breaking heat this weekend,” Deutsche Bahn said in a statement.

In the western city of Dormagen, dozens of residents of a nursing home were evacuated for medical care due to dangerous heat conditions in the building.

The local fire department reported that temperatures inside the home had reached 35 C (95 F). Air conditioning is not widespread in Germany and many countries in Europe because the continent is largely unused to such oppressive heat.

A resident at the home died overnight, but it was not yet clear whether the heat was the cause, a city spokesperson told German news agency dpa.

In France, temperatures were easing as the peak of the heat wave was starting to pass in some parts of the country. But hospitals remained under intense pressure in the face of heat-related emergencies, including heart attacks, heatstroke and dehydration.

In the capital, the Paris public hospital authority said it activated its emergency response plan across all 38 hospitals to deal with a continuous increase in activity.

The AP-HP authority said Friday its emergency departments treated nearly 3,000 patients in the past 24 hours, over a third more than normal, with a large proportion of them over the age of 75 requiring hospitalization.

Phone calls to its medical dispatch centers were up nearly 80% compared with the same period in 2025, it said.

Three-quarters of France, encompassing tens of millions of people, was put under a red alert for extreme heat on Thursday and Friday as the mercury topped 40 C (104 F) in some locations, including in Paris.

Concerns that hospitals could be overwhelmed prompted the postponement of the Paris Pride march for LGBTQ+ rights on Saturday, and a three-day music festival was canceled.

The temperatures this week have been higher than those during a historic 2003 heat wave that was blamed for 15,000 heat-related deaths, many of them older people. The AP-HP’s director, Nicolas Revel, said he doesn’t expect as many deaths this time, at least in Paris hospitals, in part because treatment for overheating has since improved.

During another exceptionally hot summer last year, more than 5,700 deaths were attributed to heat, according to France’s public health authority.

“I think we’ll be situated, clearly, between 2025 and without necessarily reaching the catastrophic level of 2003. But we have to expect that there will still be many deaths,” he said.

In the U.K., sweltering conditions are expected to gradually ease this weekend though an amber warning — one step down from red — remained in place until Saturday night.

Britons struggled to cope this week as the record June temperature was smashed three days in a row. Friday was confirmed as the country's hottest June day on record, with a provisional temperature of 37.3 C (99 F) recorded in eastern England.

It was more than 1 C hotter than the long-standing record for June heat in the U.K., set in the summer of 1976.

On Saturday, police said a 22-year-old man's body was recovered from a river after he reportedly got into difficulty in the water during the heat wave.

Authorities have warned people to take extra care when swimming in unsupervised areas, such as rivers or lakes, following the deaths of around 40 people in France over the past week.

In Italy's capital, which remains under a red heat alert, tourists tried to cool off seeking shade near buildings and dunking their heads under public fountains. Street vendors were doing a brisk business selling bottled water, hats and sun umbrellas.

Some turned to Italian classics for relief.

“Gelato, pasta, because it’s tradition, but also fresh fruit, and ice cold drinks, that’s the best for this temperature,” said Isabella Dold, a tourist from Kempten, Germany.

On Saturday, Italy’s health ministry said 18 cities — including the most popular tourism hubs like Venice, Florence, Bologna and Milan — were on red alert due to danger posed by the high temperatures.

A new study from the World Weather Attribution, a Europe-based collaboration of scientists, reported Friday that the record-breaking heat and humidity in Europe this week would not have been possible without climate change.

The rapid study found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.

André Corrêa do Lago, the president of the U.N. climate talks known as COP30, said the heat wave has "helped strengthen the perception of urgency of fighting climate change.”

“The fact that we are living with this amazing heat in London is a strong argument, we need to agree, that we have to take action as soon as possible,” do Lago told The Associated Press.

Hui reported from London and Leicester from Paris. Trisha Thomas contributed from Rome.

A tourist from China protects her face from the sun as she takes pictures at the Roemerberg square in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

A girl cools off in a public fountain in Vilnius, Lithuania, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

A Fiaker horse carriage rider cools his horses on a hot summer day in the city center of Vienna, Austria, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)

Spectators wear hats against the heat during the final of the Bad Homburg Open WTA tennis tournament in Bad Homburg, Germany, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

People crowd the beach at the seaside resort on the island of Rügen, Germany, Saurday, June 27, 2026, as the heat wave continues over Europe. (Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP)

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) — The situation has grown more desperate by the hour in Venezuela as people dig through the rubble of collapsed homes and apartment buildings three days after the devastating one-two punch of 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes, knowing time is running out to find survivors.

Authorities announced Friday night that they would block access to La Guaira, the epicenter of the destruction, as chaos and traffic were hampering search efforts. Officials said anyone who wants to enter would now have to seek official permits, but provided few details of who would be allowed in. More than 14,000 members of the military and police are patrolling the area, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said on state television Saturday.

Venezuelans took the search for missing loved ones into their own hands, citing a scarcity of government rescuers, as the human toll of Wednesday's quakes climbed to at least 920 dead and more than 51,000 missing. People reported seeing few state rescue teams in the hardest-hit areas, despite authorities projecting an image of a robust government response.

Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours to be a crucial time frame to retrieve people alive, though that can be extended if they have access to food and water.

“Each person saved is a miracle,” said Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly. “We are not going to hide absolutely anything about the magnitude of this tragedy."

In the state of La Guaira, just north of the capital, Caracas, Nazareth Jiménez sobbed into a loved one's shoulder as she watched neighbors use hammers and power tools to try to cut through slabs of concrete in a building reduced to a mountain of debris. She was wracked with anxiety as she waited to see if her siblings, nephews, nieces and friends would emerge alive.

“My God, how are we going to get them out of there?” Jiménez murmured.

“We're making a call for help to the government and countries across the world,” she said, pleading for machinery capable of moving collapsed structures. “There are still people alive in there.”

Government forces distributed food and water to survivors in La Guaira, and Rodríguez said her government was mounting a full response during these “critical hours for rescuing people alive.”

The disaster poses a huge challenge for Rodríguez, the former vice president who took office in January after the capture and removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro by the United States. Venezuela has been facing economic disarray for more than a decade, and many people reject the legitimacy of the political movement Rodríguez represents.

The number of dead was expected to climb, and people reported tens of thousands of missing on independent digital databases. Those figures likely included people who have been incommunicado due to the lack of cellphone signals, and some reports may be duplicates.

The number of injured was more than 3,300 as of midday Friday, and authorities said they rescued 243.

The International Organization for Migration said up to 6.76 million people could be affected, some 2 million of them in Caracas alone. The destruction was amplified by the quick succession of shallow quakes, experts said.

Loyce Pace, the International Red Cross’ regional director for the Americas, said “people are still terrified to reenter what were their homes.”

Indeed, many continued to sleep on the street.

Omar Reyes said around 20 family members died.

“I’ve been left alone in this life,” Reyes said, walking through the rubble where two of his children were buried.

In the city of Maiquetia, people lined up outside stores and pharmacies that served them one by one behind closed doors. At one point a woman in a crowd threw herself to the ground to protect a package of diapers with her body, desperate to keep it.

Traffic and throngs of motorcyclists at times disrupted search efforts. Mexican soldiers and volunteers repeatedly asked for silence to try to hear signs of life under the rubble, but bikers — civilian and uniformed — continued to honk horns and rev engines to the first responders' frustration.

Some people began to carry off basic goods such as toilet paper and food from stores in Catia La Mar, adjacent to the country’s main airport. Others swarmed a civilian pickup truck that was giving out bread and water, until a soldier intervened. The parking lot of a pharmacy turned into a makeshift shelter with tarps, hammocks and tents.

A few miles away, Yuleidy Cadenas, 28, stood across the street from a collapsed public housing building, hoping her son, mother and brother would be pulled out alive.

She fled barefoot from another building as it collapsed Wednesday and found her mother’s 12-floor apartment tower had pancaked.

“I got on top of the rubble and told them to yell back, and nobody did, not my brother, nor my son or my mother,” Cadenas said.

Venezuelan authorities said Friday that 861 volunteers from Mexico, the U.S., El Salvador, Switzerland, Colombia and beyond were in the country, and more were coming from elsewhere.

Acting President Rodríguez said she spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday and they reaffirmed their commitment to send rescue teams and aid equipment.

Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalists Clara Preve in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed.

Rescue workers look for survivors three days after an earthquake struck in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Residents and rescue workers search through the rubble two days after an earthquake struck in La Guaira, Venezuela, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Residents pull a body from the rubble two days after earthquakes struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Rescue workers place Daniel Cordero on a stretcher after pulling him from the rubble two days after an earthquake struck Catia la Mar, Venezuela, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Residents walks through the rubble two days after earthquakes struck Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Residents and rescue workers search through the rubble two days after an earthquake struck La Guaira, Venezuela, Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Juan Pablo Arraez)