Sharjah24 - Reuters: Firefighters worked through the night to damp down wildfires and engineers raced on Wednesday to fix train tracks that buckled in the heat as Britain woke up to the aftermath of its hottest ever day.
The London Fire Brigade endured its busiest day since World War Two on Tuesday when temperatures topped 40C for the first time, igniting fires that destroyed dozens of properties in the capital and sent flames racing through tinderbox-dry grassland at the sides of railway tracks and roads.
Trains running from London up the east coast of England were cancelled at least until midday on Wednesday after a fire near the city of Peterborough in central England damaged signalling equipment. Other fires on the network damaged tracks and overhead lines.
"Please do not travel to or from London Kings Cross today," the London North Eastern Railway operator said, of the major London station.
Britain's Met Office said a new provisional record temperature of 40.3C (104.5F) was recorded in Coningsby, central England, on Tuesday, with 34 sites across the country beating the previous high of 38.7C (101.7F) recorded in 2019.
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