People 'suffocating' in Spain as Mallorca hits 43 degrees

The peak of the third heatwave of the summer in Spain made locals and tourists sweat profusely on Tuesday.

"We're all suffocating!" star presenter Silvia Intxaurrondo shouted in front of the running cameras of the state TV channel RTVE in the morning.

The digital newspaper OK Diario ran the headline: "Spain melts this week."

On a café terrace in Madrid, tourist Elsa from Mexico told dpa: "I'm used to heat, but this is too tough. There's no breeze here."

It was not Madrid or the region of Andalusia, which is known for its unbearable summer heat, that was hit the worst, but, among others, the popular tourist destination of Mallorca, with the national weather service AEMET announcing maximum temperatures of at least 43 degrees Celsius for the north and east of the Spanish Mediterranean island.

At the famous Playa de Palma beach in the south of the island, temperatures of 38 degrees were measured in the early afternoon - in the shade, of course.

For the north and east of Mallorca and also for parts of Catalonia and Aragon in the Spanish north-east, AEMET declared the highest alert level red on Tuesday.

Different levels of heat alert applied in 13 of the country's 17 autonomous communities.

Quite a few Spaniards looked enviously at the inhabitants of the region of Cantabria in the north, where temperatures of only slightly above 20 degrees were registered on Tuesday.

The heatwave is expected to end by Thursday at the latest.

According to AEMET, more and more intense heatwaves are being registered in Spain. Experts attribute this to man-made climate change. AEMET spokesman Ruben del Campo, for example, said: "One thing is clear: Climate change increases extreme weather events."