• Spain's national weather service, AEMET, has issued a warning of a new heatwave with temperatures expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius in various regions of the country.
• The heatwave in Spain is part of a trend of recurring and intensifying heatwaves across Europe, as stated by the World Health Organization's regional director for Europe.
• AEMET has issued an orange weather warning for the affected areas, indicating a significant health risk for the estimated 10 million people living in those regions.

Spain is once again heading for temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius just a few days after the last heatwave, the national AEMET weather service warned on Friday.

AEMET forecast high temperatures for the south-west of the country, as well as in the north and north-east from Sunday at the latest.

A heatwave in Spain at the end of June subsequently spread across France, bringing record temperatures as far as Germany.

Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's (WHO) regional director for Europe, said on Tuesday that heatwaves are no longer one-off extreme events, but recurring crises that are occurring more frequently, becoming more intense and lasting longer.

In Spain, the air is repeatedly heating up, particularly in the river valleys of Andalusia and Extremadura in the south-west, as well as along the River Ebro in the region of Aragón in the north-east of the country.

Maximum temperatures of 41 to 42 degrees are expected in these areas on Sunday. But even in Galicia, which is otherwise rather cool and lies in the far north-west of Spain, temperatures could climb to as high as 37 degrees.

For the affected parts of the country, home to an estimated 10 million people, AEMET issued an orange weather warning - the second-highest level - which corresponds to a "significant health risk."