Paris (France) (AFP) - Workers sweated in choking heat and pupils stayed home on Tuesday as an early-summer heatwave smothered much of western Europe.

Schools closed, outdoor events were cancelled and railways advised against travel as Britain, France, Italy and Spain issued red alerts and health warnings for much of their territory in the record-breaking heat.

France sweated through its hottest night ever recorded and reported that 40 people had drowned in the past five days as citizens bathed to cool off. The Eiffel Tower’s operators said it would close early at 4:00 pm (1400 GMT).

Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming, and warn they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense, driven by humans’ burning of fossil fuels.

In Barcelona, 76-year-old Jose Farre said it made it harder for him to sleep and even breathe.

“I have a heart condition, I’m diabetic and I feel it a lot,” he said, after coming out in the cooler early hours to do his shopping.

A massive front of hot air from North Africa was smothering western Europe, Sebastien Leas, a forecaster at France’s weather service Meteo-France, told AFP.

A cold front off Portugal was “acting like a heat pump, drawing up warm air”, he said.

“At altitude, high pressure systems exert pressure on this warm air mass, and when we compress a warm air mass, we actually make it even hotter.”

- Heat health danger -

Nearly all of Spain was under a heat alert, with parts of the south and north of the country on the highest warning level for “extraordinary danger”, national weather agency AEMET said.

Authorities urged people to take extra care of vulnerable people, drink water and avoid exertion at the hottest hours.

But some workers said they had no choice but to sweat in the sun.

Removal man Valentin Fernandez told AFP he was having a “rotten time” trucking furniture and boxes in Madrid, where the temperature reached 38C.

“When the sun starts to hit you, you feel like dying. And inside the truck it’s twice as bad… it’s horrendous,” he said, sweat soaking his shirt and running off his nose.

“We have no choice – until one day we’ll get heat stroke,” he added. “If you don’t work, you don’t eat. That’s the way it is.”

Italy’s health ministry declared a red heatwave alert in 15 cities including Milan and Rome.

Blackouts struck Milan and Turin because of the spike in the use of air conditioning.

The hospital service in Parma said 1,068 people had accessed its emergency services over the past three days because of the heatwave.

- UK schools close -

Dozens of schools in England said they would close early on Tuesday and remain shut for two more days.

“Most of our buildings cannot be cooled adequately and there is little shade outside,” one school in southeastern Buckinghamshire said.

The UK’s Met Office weather agency issued a rare red heat warning – for only the second time – for parts of central and south England on Wednesday and Thursday.

Temperatures could soar to 40C, unprecedented for the time of the year – a “sobering” prospect, according to Met Office chief scientist Stephen Belcher.

The railway line connecting northeast England to London issued a “do not travel” advisory.

- ‘Tragic’ drownings in France -

France from Monday to Tuesday had its hottest night since records began in 1947, the national weather agency Meteo France said.

Speaking at a crisis meeting, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu warned of “a tragic scourge of drownings”, saying 40 mostly young people had drowned since June 18.

In Germany in Monday police said five people had died in fatal swimming accidents over the weekend.

On Monday, two children aged two and four were found dead in a car, believed to be casualties of the heatwave, in the southern French town of Carpentras.

At one Paris school, parents taped survival blankets to windows to lower the temperature inside and pooled their money to buy shade sails for the playground.

The school received some fans, “but that doesn’t actually lower the temperature in the rooms,” said Gaelle Roubere, of the parents’ association at the Marsoulan primary school.

In the coastal village of Beauvoir-sur-Mer in western France, farmer Stephane Delapre told AFP that half of his chickens had died from the heat on Monday.

“In 42 years on the job, I’ve never seen that happen,” he said.