Blazes, soaring temperatures and violent storms strike across the world

“Temperatures in North America, Asia, and across North Africa and the Mediterranean will be above 40° C (104° F) for a prolonged number of days this week as the heatwave intensifies,” the World Meteorological Organization said.

Parts of Spain, Italy and Greece were in “very extreme danger” of fires, the European Union’s emergency management service said in a tweet.

The Italian island of Sardinia could see highs of more than 47 Celsius (116 Fahrenheit). Temperatures could hit 104 degrees F in other Italian cities.

Rome braced for temperatures as high as 107 degrees, with officials distributing bottled water and guiding tourists to fountains.

“We helped at least 11 people this morning who felt unwell because of the heat, some fainted, other needed to get in the shade and take a break,” Giuseppe Napolitano, head of the Civil Protection Agency in Rome, told NBC News.

The heat in Spain intensified during the day, and wildfires burned uncontrollably on the Canary Island of La Palma, forcing more than 4,000 residents to be evacuated.

Blazes were also intensified near the Greek capital of Athens, forcing residents to flee their homes and prompting evacuation of hundreds of children from a summer camp.

The blaze broke out in the village of Kouvaras, about 17 miles from Athens, fanned by the erratic winds, a Greek fire service official said, adding 200 firefighters with over a dozen aircrafts were trying to control the flames.

In Switzerland too, almost 150 emergency responders scrambled to douse flames as a forest wildfire spread with authorities ordering the evacuation of several mountain villages, the police said in a briefing on Monday.

Meanwhile in China, Talim became the first typhoon to make landfall this year, knocking out power for almost 15,000 in Guangdong in southern China, much of which was restored on Tuesday, local officials said in a statement.

As the storm approached with winds up to 87 miles an hour, schools and the stock market remained shuttered in Hong Kong on Monday as it sideswiped the Chinese territory and headed toward the island province of Hainan.

Over the weekend, temperatures across China’s arid northwest set a national record, hitting a high of almost 126 degrees on Sunday in the Xinjiang region. The capital city of Beijing is enduring one of its hottest summers in its half a century of record keeping, with mercury soaring over 104 degrees for three days straight in June.

Experts warned that the worst was not over, with climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions that has affected almost every part of the world.

“Wherever you are on this planet, this summer and the months looking forward, there are likely going to be more extremes,” Hannah Cloke, a climate scientist and a hydrology professor at the University of Reading in the U.K., told NBC News.

This year, especially, she said, conditions are expected to worsen due to El Niño — a climate pattern developing in the Pacific Ocean.