Spain swelters as heatwave mounts, workers seek shade

MADRID (Reuters) - Temperatures soared across swathes of Spain on Thursday and were seen climbing further into the weekend, triggering health alerts and forcing many to get up earlier to avoid the hottest hours of the day.

Most of the country would top 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday, and the regions of Andalusia, Extremadura, Madrid and Aragon could reach 40 C, weather service AEMET said.

"I come out early, before I go to work, to avoid the heatwave," Raul Gomez, who was out jogging at Madrid's Casa de Campo park at 7 a.m., told Reuters. "After work and at night it’s impossible to go out," the 43-year-old said.

Echoing authorities across southern Europe, Spain's health ministry told people to drink water, protect themselves against the sun and pay particular attention to the young and the elderly.

This summer's first major heatwave would spread to cover its widest area of territory in Spain on Friday, with temperatures hitting 40 C in most areas and as high as 43 C in parts of Andalusia in the south, AEMET said.

Some areas along the Mediterranean coast could climb even further to 44 C on Saturday, though thermometers would drop in most other regions, the forecaster said.

In downtown Madrid, delivery worker Emanuel Lopez said it was harder to work on hot days.

"Physical work with the heat is more demanding and we get more tired," said the 19-year-old Venezuelan who has been living in Madrid for three years.

The weather service has issued an orange alert in parts of the country, effectively banning outdoor working in the afternoon in those areas under government regulations brought in last year.

Spain's national broadcaster TVE showed grape pickers who started working at 4 a.m. finishing before 11 a.m in the southern Cordoba area.

There was a high risk of wildfires in most of the country on Friday and Saturday, AEMET said. Large areas of Europe have been hit by increasingly damaging forest fire seasons that experts say are driven by rising temperatures fuelled by climate change.

Heat is likely to persist until the middle of next week and will be accompanied by haze coming from Africa, which often exacerbates health problems during heat episodes.

(Reporting by Catherine MacDonald and Michael Gore. Writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Andrew Heavens)