Authorities in northern France raced Wednesday to restore power to thousands of homes after widespread outages struck during a punishing heat wave that has gripped much of Western Europe for days.
Officials said health care facilities and other critical infrastructure were being given priority as crews worked to reconnect affected areas. Generators were also deployed to retirement homes following Tuesday's blackout, which authorities linked to a transformer failure.
"The incident was accidental and linked to the ongoing heat wave," officials said in a statement. "No one was injured."
Record-breaking temperatures across Europe, reaching as much as 18 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, according to the Reuters Climate Monitor, have disrupted transport networks and forced schools and tourist sites to close.
Weather agency Meteo-France said the conditions are comparable to a heat wave in August 2003 that lasted 16 days and caused an estimated 80,000 excess deaths across Europe.
