![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_GettyImages-522156676.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe tragedy has underlined dangers of extreme weather event<\/p>\n
16:13, 21 May 2026Updated 16:24, 21 May 2026<\/p>\n
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Tourists on the beach in Spain(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Visitors and locals in a number of Spanish regions are being warned to take care and keep cool as an extreme weather event causes temperatures to soar as high as 38C.<\/p>\n
One life has already been lost, and authorities are warning that more could be endangered after a 2-year-old girl died when she was left in a car for several hours after her father forgot to take her to a nursery.<\/p>\n
The child, who has not been named, went into heat shock and cardiac arrest in the town of Brion in the northern province of Galicia, the region that has Santiago de Compostela as its capital. Local media reported that the man had driven his older child to school that morning and was set to drop the toddler at nursery when he was distracted by a phone call. He then went straight to work and left his daughter in the car, which overheated in the sun.<\/p>\n
It was only later that afternoon, as her mother went to pick her up from the nursery and was told she had not been dropped off that morning, that the alarm was raised. The parents called the emergency services and the girl was taken to a health centre in the nearby town of Bertamir\u00e1ns where she was pronounced dead. Police are investigating the incident, and the family is receiving counselling.<\/p>\n
The mayor of her home town called for a day of mourning and said: “We would like to offer our deepest condolences and all our support to the family of the little girl who lost her life in Bri\u00f3n yesterday, as well as to all her friends, while we make all the municipal resources they need available to them in these difficult times. May she rest in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sudden heat wave has seen temperatures in some regions climb above 35C with the national forecaster in Spain warning of more days of extreme temperatures to come.<\/p>\n
Measures are being taken in the affected regions to offer help to those struggling with the heat, including older people who do not have air conditioning. Information campaigns are also warning visitors to Spain to take measures to protect themselves.<\/p>\n
Spain’s national meteorological service, Aemet, has warned that the \u201cexceptionally high temperatures\u201d could reach 36-38C in some southern parts of the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout May, we have recorded a prolonged period of below-normal temperatures,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cNow comes the complete opposite: a period of very high temperatures for this time of year across most of the country. In fact, some days could break heat records.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aemet said the hot spell, which does not meet the technical criteria to be declared a heatwave, would probably last until the middle of next week at least. Irish tourists heading to Spain over the June Bank Holiday weekend should be prepared for the possibility of extreme heat.<\/p>\n
Spain has suffered through ever more frequent heatwaves and a sharp increase in large forest fires in recent years as it is one of the European countries most vulnerable to climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tragedy has underlined dangers of extreme weather event 16:13, 21 May 2026Updated 16:24, 21 May 2026 Tourists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-461273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}