As Spain swelters, volunteers serve cold soup to homeless

By Jon Nazca

CORDOBA, Spain (Reuters) - Red Cross volunteers handed out gazpacho soup, water and soft drinks to homeless people in the southern city of Cordoba as Spain braced for the peak of its first heatwave of the summer.

"A plate of food, our gazpacho, our milk - that's a lot to be thankful for," Jose Miguel Sanchez said, praising the helpers serving him and his partner on a street in the city centre on Thursday night.

The 59-year-old told Reuters a woman had let them stay in her home for a few days to keep out of the sun.

Weather service AEMET forecast the heatwave would cover its widest area across Spain on Friday, with temperatures hitting 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in most parts and reaching 43 C in Cordoba and other parts of Andalusia.

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

In Madrid, authorities bussed in homeless people from across the capital to take shelter in an air-conditioned centre with food, drinks and a washroom area.

Authorities issued health alerts and said there was a high risk of wildfires in most of Spain.

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.

Spain had almost 11,000 deaths attributable to extreme heat last year, according to research led by the national Scientific Research Council (CSIC) that tracked excess mortality rates alongside AEMET temperature data.

(Additional reporting and writing by Emma Pinedo, editing by Andrei Khalip and Andrew Heavens)