SCORES of people have died amid severe ongoing heatwaves that have gripped two of the largest continents on the planet.

Soaring temperatures, dry conditions and subsequent wildfires continue to wreak havoc across the UK, Europe and Asia as the northern hemisphere’s summer breaks records.

Thousands of people in Japan alone have been rushed to hospitals with heatstroke symptoms in recent weeks. At least 40 of them have died. In South Korea, the heatwave has claimed at least 10 lives. In Greece, the death toll has already reached 20, with dozens more injured and in serious conditions, as the worst forest fires to hit the country in a decade rip through and destroy cars, homes, and forests. Raging fires have ripped through and destroyed homes in Sweden, Norway and Latvia. On Monday, Britain reached it’s highest temperature of the year as residents were warned to stay inside. But it wasn’t alone in its record-breaking.

JAPAN ‘IS LIKE BEING IN A SAUNA’

Japan recorded its highest temperature ever Monday as a deadly heatwave continued to ravage a wide swath of the country and nearby South and North Korea.

The mercury hit 41.1C in Kumagaya, a city in Saitama prefecture about 65 kilometres northwest of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. That broke the previous record of 41C in Ekawasaki on the island of Shikoku on August 12, 2013.

Two lingering high pressure systems have trapped warm and humid air above the region, bringing record-high temperatures for nearly two weeks. More than 40 people have died in Japan and about 10 in South Korea.

“It is so hot these days that I cannot figure out whether I am in (South Korea) or in Southeast Asia,” said Kim Sung-hee, a student in downtown Seoul, where the temperature rose to 35.7C.

Thousands of people in Japan have been rushed to hospitals with heat stroke symptoms during the heatwave. Kyodo News agency has tallied more than 40 deaths. Many of the victims have been elderly people who were not using air conditioning.

The temperature reached 39C on Monday in central Tokyo, the highest temperature this year. The worst of the heatwave is expected to be over this week.

Tourists in Tokyo’s historic Asakusa district struggled with the heat. Cosett Romero from Mexico said she and her family were getting headaches.

“It’s difficult to us because we don’t have this heat in Mexico,” she said. Authorities warned people to stay inside and use airconditioning.

“The weather recently in Tokyo and across Japan is like being in a sauna,” Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said.

TEN DEAD IN SOUTH KOREA

Ten people have died in South Korea of heatstroke and other heat-related causes this summer, seven of them last week, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. About 1,040 people have fallen ill because of hot weather from May 20 to July 21, an increase of 61 per cent over the same period last year, it said.

South Korea’s highest-ever morning low was recorded in the city of Gangneung, where the temperature was 31C at 6.45am. The morning low in Seoul was 29.2 C, a record for the country’s capital, according to South Korea’s weather agency.

The mercury hit 39.9C in the southeastern town of Hayang, the highest temperature in the country so far this year.

NORTH KOREA BRACES FOR MORE SOARING TEMPERATURES

In North Korea, residents fanned themselves on crowded trolleys or protected themselves from the sun with brightly coloured parasols as temperatures in Pyongyang, the capital, reached 34C. Weather reports said higher temperatures were recorded on the country’s eastern coast.

GREECE: ‘IF I HADN’T LEFT, I’D HAVE BEEN BURNED’

Greece has sought international assistance to cope with out-of-control fires near Athens, as tourists and Greeks are forced to flee to beaches east of capital for dramatic rescues by boats. More than 300 firefighters, five aircraft and two helicopters have been mobilised to tackle the “extremely difficult” situation, Athens fire chief Achille Tzouvaras said.

A spokesman for the Greek government confirmed the rising death toll soared past 50.

With temperatures set to soar again, they are in a race against time to get the fires under control.

Video footage showed inhabitants fleeing the fires by car, with several buildings and homes damaged, as the region of Attica — where Athens is situated — declared a state of emergency.

“If I hadn’t left, I’d have been burned,” a 67-year-old resident who gave her name as Maria told AFP.

Emergency services were banking on a drop in 60-kilometre-per-hour winds but the forecast for the region — which has experienced temperatures topping 40C — suggest conditions would remain challenging into Tuesday.

Smoke from the blazes blotted out the sun over the famed Parthenon temple in Athens, where some ministries closed in the afternoon due to the soaring heat.

Greece’s coast guard says a search-and-rescue operation is underway for several people, believed to be foreign tourists, who fled a massive forest fire in a boat and were missing.

A coast guard helicopter and vessel were searching the sea near the town of Rafina, northeast of the Greek capital of Athens.

Regional Greek authorities have declared a state of emergency in the eastern and western parts of greater Athens, as fires fanned by gale-force winds raged through pine forests and seaside towns on either side of the Greek capital.

In nearby Mati, the coast guard was sending a patrol boat to evacuate people trapped on a beach by the flames.

The blaze has created such thick smoke that the main highways between the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland have been shut down and an orange haze has descended on Athens.

Local authorities said they were evacuating children’s summer camps, while dozens of homes and cars were destroyed.

‘EXTREME RISK’: SWEDEN BATTLES 27 FIRES

Also on Monday, Sweden’s civil protection agency MSB said there were 27 active fires across the country, as temperatures were expected to soar as high as 35C this week.

Other European countries including France, Italy and Germany have sent a mix of plane, trucks and firefighters to help tackle the blazes as Sweden, where usual summer temperatures are closer to 23C, has struggled to contain the crisis.

Some 62,000 acres of land has already gone up in smoke or continues to burn — an area twice the size of the city of Paris.

At least four of the fires had not been brought under control, MSB said, and weather conditions were unfavourable.

Sweden is experiencing an unprecedented drought and soaring temperatures which have reached the highest in a century.

“The risk is extreme” in the southern part of Sweden, with the heatwave leaving forests tinder dry with no rain likely, MSB head of operations Britta Ramberg told a news conference.

Ramberg said anybody lighting fires or barbecues would face prosecution. There has been practically no rain since the beginning of May in the Nordic country, aside from a paltry 13 millimetres in mid-June.

The Forestry Bureau said in a statement Monday that the value of the destroyed forests was 87 million euros.

FINLAND & NORWAY RAVAGED

Other northern European nations have been struggling to contain forest fires as the temperature shows no sign of dropping.

In Finland’s northernmost Lapland province, fires have ravaged wood and grassland close to the border with Russia.

Norway, which this year experienced its hottest May temperatures on record, has also seen several small fires, and one firefighter was killed on July 15 while trying to contain a blaze.

THOUSANDS OF ACRES DESTROYED IN LATVIA

Fires have raged for five days in Latvia, destroying more than 2,000 acres in the Baltic state’s western regions.

Meteorologists warned that the high temperatures are persisting and no rain is expected in Latvia for the next two weeks.

POMS TOLD NOT TO GO OUTSIDE

Not even notoriously cold Britain has escaped the heatwave.

Monday marked the hottest day of the year in region — at 33.3C.

While the mercury is known to regularly exceed that temperature in places including Australia, the situation prompted the UK’s national weather service, the Met Office, to issue a Level 3 amber alert in response to the “crisis”. The alert is an official warning which is triggered when temperatures are expected to reach 30C during the day and 15C during the night for at least two days in a row. It means it is just one level away from a national emergency being declared.

As a result of that warning, the Met Office’s official advice was for residents to stay indoors until temperatures ease later in the week, as well as shading windows and keeping them shut during the day, drinking plenty of fluids and keeping an eye out for high-risk people such as the elderly.

Monday was the #hottestdayoftheyear so far as Santon Downham in Suffolk reached 33.3 °C 🌡️Rain arrived across parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England 🌧️ pic.twitter.com/PQfyXACiw5 — Met Office (@metoffice) July 23, 2018

— With wires