Two children die of heart attacks in hot car when mother ‘forgets’ about them after shopping trip during 40C French heatwave

The mother of two young boys who were found dead in a car during a heatwave in France forgot about her children while she was unpacking shopping, it has been claimed. 

The brothers, aged just four and two, were found unresponsive by their mother, 33, on Monday afternoon in the town of Carpentras, southern France, in a car parked outside their grandmother’s house. 

They suffered cardiac arrest as temperatures reached a sweltering 40C, and while services were called to the scene, resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful. 

Today, it was claimed by French media that the mother had changed her story about the sequence of events.

The RTL news outlet reported: ‘According to our information, the mother’s initial statements contained inconsistencies.

‘She first claimed she had left them in the car upon returning from a shopping trip.

‘Later, she stated that they had climbed back inside without her knowledge while she was unloading her groceries.’

A neighbour said they ‘heard the mother screaming when she realised what had happened to her children. She was in an absolute state of shock’.

An investigation into manslaughter has been launched. 

The ⁠double tragedy occurred as temperatures soared across Western Europe, driven by a mass of hot air moving north from the Sahara, fuelled by a strong high‑pressure ​system known as the ‘African anticyclone’.

Meteorologists say the system is creating a so‑called ‘heat dome’, trapping hot air over western and central Europe, and ​allowing temperatures to build day after day.

The children’s bodies have been transferred to the forensic institute in Nîmes for an autopsy, which will take place on Wednesday. 

France is being hit by a heatwave, with much of the western and central regions of the nation blasting past 40C on Monday. 

Some 40 people have drowned in the country while seeking reprieve from the heat since June 18, according to Sebastien Lecornu, France’s prime minister.

He will hold a crisis meeting today to discuss the extreme weather that is bringing the country to its knees. 

The government’s emergency response cell warned people not to try to cool off in unsupervised areas such as lakes and rivers after the weekend’s drowning deaths at the weekend, which included a 13-year-old girl. 

Elsewhere in France, three elderly people died in their residence in Gironde in the southwest as a result of the high temperatures.

The country’s national weather agency said that it experienced its hottest night from Monday to Tuesday since measurements began in 1947. 

The national temperature indicator – an average of readings from 30 stations across France – reached 21.6C, according to preliminary figures taken Tuesday morning. The previous record was 21.4C, set on July 25, 2019. 

France has switched off a reactor at a nuclear plant near Toulouse because cooling water drawn from a nearby river had got too warm, a spokeswoman said.

The hot temperatures continued into Tuesday, with highs of 43C. 

Harsh temperatures are expected to linger throughout Europe until at least Thursday, with conditions possibly intensifying as the week continues. 

Germany also saw a spike in fatal swimming accidents, with five deaths recorded over the weekend.

Two men aged 20 and 22 drowned in lakes in Bavaria, and a 79-year-old woman died in the Baltic Sea. Other fatal swimming accidents occurred in lakes in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia.

And in the UK, thunderstorms and torrential rain sparked widespread disruption across Britain today after some 3,000 lightning strikes hit London in just two hours. 

A violent band of storms swept across southern England overnight, bringing flash flooding, power cuts and travel disruption before Britain braces for what could become one of the hottest days ever recorded in the UK later this week.

The storms are expected to give way to soaring temperatures as the heat dome builds across western Europe, with forecasters warning Britain could experience its hottest June day on record. 

The European heat dome comes after a May that saw several countries report record temperatures for that time of year. 

Weather bosses in France have put 49 of the 96 mainland departments on a red alert weather warning, up from 35 over the weekend.

Forecasters warned that scorching weather could end up being as serious as a 2003 heatwave that claimed the lives of nearly 15,000 people nationwide.

France’s junior minister for ecology Mathieu Lefevre said this heatwave was ‘particularly intense and particularly early’.

At Sunday’s Fête de la Musique, which sees large crowds celebrate on the streets of most of France’s cities, authorities banned the consumption of alcohol for fear of the risks drinking in high heat poses.

The Louvre also cancelled a free concert under its world-famous glass pyramid.

The government’s emergency response cell warned people not to try to cool off in unsupervised areas such as lakes and rivers.

Officials announced the closure of 845 schools on Monday, with another 1,800 set to let students leave earlier than normal.

Transport over the weekend and into Monday was affected in France. Jean Castex, the chief of state-owned rail operator SNCF, said high temperatures increased the risk to overhead powerlines and could even expand the tracks trains rely on.

As a result, SNCF cancelled 71 intercity trains Sunday through Monday on key routes, while deploying 3,500 staff to monitor the network. On top of this, 2,000 were sent to make emergency repairs.

Europe has suffered greatly from heat over the last few years. 

The World Health Organisation’s Europe office said this month that over the last four years, more than 200,000 people across the continent died from heat-related causes.

The UN has warned that the weather over the next five years will likely see more shattered heat records.