Searing heat and drought are affecting large swathes of southern Europe and North Africa. Click on the map for situation reports from the worst-hit countries:

 

France

Water-rationing is in place across more than half of France, with the west particularly affected by drought. Measures range from bans on washing cars to limits on farmers watering crops. Cereal production may be badly hit.

A plague of locusts in the south of France, around Aveyron, has been put down to the continuing dry, hot weather.

The authorities are keen to prevent a repeat of the 15,000 premature deaths blamed on the 2003 heatwave. A register has been set up of vulnerable elderly people in large towns.

A hidden cache of World War II gunpowder surprised firefighters when it ignited as a forest fire swept through woodland in the Var region, according to the Associated Press. No one was injured in the explosions.

The fire, which was contained on 5 August, had forced about 1,500 people to leave their homes for safety and scorched around 250 hectares of land.

Two pilots died on 20 August when their firefighting aircaft crashed in the Ardeche, in south-eastern France. It is the third incident involving firefighting aircraft in a month.

On 1 August, two Canadair pilots died when their plane crashed in Corsica. In July, a pilot escaped uninjured when his plane crashed in the Var region.