ROME: Hot weather swept across three continents on Sunday, fanning wildfires and threatening to topple temperature records as the dire consequences of global warming became apparent.
Historical temperature forecasts have hung over large swaths of Asia, Europe, and the United States.
In the Vatican, 15,000 people braved sweltering temperatures to hear Pope Francis lead the prayer, using umbrellas and fans to keep cool.
But in their black robes, priests like François Mbemba said they “sweat like hell.”
The 29-year-old said it was much hotter in St Peter’s Square than in the DRC parish.
In Japan, authorities issued heatstroke alerts for tens of millions of people in 20 of its 47 prefectures as near-record high temperatures scorched large areas and torrential rain lashed others.

National broadcaster NHK warned the heat was life-threatening, with the capital and elsewhere recording near 40C (104F).
Japan’s highest temperature ever — 41.1°C first recorded in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, in 2018 — is surmountable, according to the meteorological agency.
Some places experienced their hottest temperatures in more than four decades on Sunday, including the town of Hirono in Fukushima Prefecture with 37.3 degrees Celsius.
The United States National Weather Service reported that a strong heatwave stretching from California to Texas was expected to peak during a “very hot and dangerous weekend.”
Death Valley in California, often one of the hottest places on Earth, is also likely to record new highs on Sunday, with the mercury likely to exceed 54 degrees Celsius.
On a Texas construction site outside of Houston, a 28-year-old worker gives only his name as Juan struggles in the sweltering heat.
“When I drink water, I get dizzy and want to vomit because of the heat,” he told AFP.
Southern California is battling several wildfires, including one in Riverside County that has burned more than 7,500 acres (3,000 ha) and prompted evacuation orders.
In the north, the Canadian government said wildfires have burned a record 10 million hectares this year, with more damage expected as summer continues.

In Europe, Italians have been warned to prepare for “the hottest heatwave of the summer and also one of the hottest heatwaves on record”.
Predictions of historic highs in the coming days led the Health Ministry to issue a red alert for 16 cities including Rome, Bologna and Florence.
Temperatures are likely to reach 40°C in Rome by Monday and 42°C to 43°C on Tuesday, breaking the record high of 40.5°C set in August 2007.
The European Space Agency has warned that Sicily and Sardinia could wither under temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius – “potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe”.
The Acropolis in Athens, one of Greece’s top tourist attractions, was closed for the third consecutive day on Sunday during the hottest hours.
In Romania, temperatures are expected to reach 39°C on Monday in most parts of the country.
Spain is expected to be a little late, as the Meteorological Agency warned of a new heat wave from Monday to Wednesday with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius in the Canary Islands and the southern region of Andalusia.
On the island of La Palma, which experienced a volcanic eruption in 2021, a fire burned 5,000 hectares this weekend, forcing the evacuation of 4,000 people.
“I feel helpless seeing how everything is burning,” Patricia Sanchez, a worker with the Spanish Red Cross, told AFP.
“To see two whole villages that were evacuated, to see that there were people who lost everything because of the volcano and rebuilt their lives in the north, and now they are being evacuated again and they are in danger of losing everything again,” said Old.

Despite the heat, parts of Asia were also hit by torrential rains.
In South Korea, rescuers struggled on Sunday to reach people trapped in a flooded tunnel, after heavy rains over the past four days caused floods and landslides that left at least 37 dead and nine missing.
The country is experiencing the peak of the summer monsoon season, with more rain expected until Wednesday.
In northern Japan on Sunday, a man was found dead in a flooded car, a week after similar weather killed seven people in the country’s southwest.
In northern India, continuous monsoon rains have killed at least 90 people, after the sweltering heat.
Floods and major landslides are common during the monsoon in India, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.
On Sunday, China issued several temperature alerts, warning of 40-45C in the desert region of Xinjiang, and 39C in the southern region of Guangxi.
It can be difficult to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, but many scientists insist that global warming — linked to dependence on fossil fuels — is to blame for the intensification of heatwaves.
The European Union’s climate monitoring service said the world had its hottest June on record last month.