Five people were killed in a wildfire and three others succumbed to the heat in Spain, bringing the death toll from both the steamy weather and a spate of forest blazes across southern Europe to at least 48 in just two weeks.

But emergency doctors in France warned the toll could go much higher as the death rate among the elderly skyrocketed, saying hospitals were unable to cope with the flood of patients and accusing the government of doing little to help.

Pope John Paul II's Sunday prayers for rain were answered on Monday with isolated storms in parts of France and Britain, which on Sunday registered its hottest day in recorded history.

The thermometer in Gravesend, southern England, hit 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 Fahrenheit) -- an uncomfortable reading similar to those endured in large parts of Europe for more than a week.

Parisians suffered through the hottest night on record -- 25.5 degrees Celsius -- the highest overnight temperature recorded since France started keeping records in 1873.

Forecasters predicted that the searing heat wave would continue for the rest of the week, sending tourists flocking to beaches across Europe's shores and leaving many office employees grumbling about sub-par working conditions.

Authorities in the Netherlands have issued a code red alert for possible power shortages, the first in nearly a decade, with residents urged to limit electricity consumption on Monday.

In France, the government authorized state-owned power utility EDF to expel hotter water from its nuclear power plants on a temporary basis in a bid to avert crippling power cuts, aides to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said.

Meanwhile, the head of France's association of emergency doctors charged that the number of deaths among elderly people had climbed alarmingly in recent days, accusing government officials of turning a blind eye to their plight.

"In the last four days, there have been practically 50 deaths due to the heat," said Patrick Pelloux -- a claim rejected by the national health service, which said no accurate statistics existed that pinned sole blame for the deaths on the heat.

At least 23 people are known to have died in Europe from heat-related complaints in the past 10 days -- 22 in Spain and a three-year-old girl in northern France -- but heat is the suspected cause of dozens of other deaths.

Another 25 people have died in forest fires -- five in France, 15 in Portugal and five in Spain -- the country's first fatalities in the summer outbreak of wildfires.

Although officials would not confirm their identities, Spanish radio said the victims of the blaze in the northeastern Catalonia region, four adults and a child, were likely members of the same family.

In Portugal, four villages were evacuated Monday as more than 300 firefighters battled to control a blaze in the Monchique mountains in southern Algarve province, a tourist haven.

And fires raged on in several locations across southern France and on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

The forest fires in Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain have devastated more than 250,000 hectares (617,500 acres) of pinewood and brush in the past two weeks -- 200,000 of them in Portugal alone.

Authorities in Lisbon estimated the rash of blazes had caused damage totalling at least 925 million euros (1.05 billion dollars).

The hot weather combined with months of severe drought has left Europe's farmers in dire straits, with grain yields across the European Union expected to fall 5.7 percent from last year to 197 million tonnes, according to farm lobbies.

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TERRA.WIRE