A two-year-old girl has died of heatstroke in north-west Spain after being accidentally left in her father's car during an unseasonably hot spell that is forecast to push temperatures in some areas to 38C.
The child, who has not been named, went into cardiac arrest on Wednesday afternoon after spending several hours inside the vehicle in the Galician town of Brión. Her father had driven an older child to school that morning and had intended to drop the toddler at nursery, but became distracted by a phone call and went to work instead.
The alarm was raised when the girl's mother arrived at the nursery to collect her at 3pm and was told she had not been dropped off. The parents called emergency services, and the girl was taken to a health centre in nearby Bertamiráns, where she was pronounced dead. Police are investigating the incident, and the family is receiving psychological support.
Brión town council has declared two days of official mourning and said a minute's silence would be held in the girl's memory on Friday. In a statement, the council expressed its deepest condolences and offered municipal resources to the family during the difficult time.
Spain is bracing for the kind of heat more commonly associated with midsummer. The state meteorological office, Aemet, said the "exceptionally high temperatures" could reach 36-38C in southern parts of the country. The hot spell, which does not meet the technical criteria for a heatwave, is expected to last until the middle of next week.
Aemet has noted that the arrival of 30C temperatures across Spain and the Balearic islands has come, on average, 20-40 days earlier over the past 71 years. Rubén del Campo, an Aemet spokesperson, previously said the trend was a "direct and palpable consequence of climate change", adding: "The summer is eating up the spring." Spain recorded its highest ever temperature in August 2021, when the mercury reached 47.6C in La Rambla, near Córdoba.
