UK tourists have been issued health warnings about travelling to certain parts of Europe in the next few weeks as temperatures soar in some regions.

The heatwave even claimed the life of a 44-year-old worker in Milan, Italy, at midday on Tuesday.

He was said to have lost consciousness due to the intense heat 40C heat.

He was taken to hospital where he later died.

"We are facing an unbearable heatwave," Italian politician Nicola Fratoianni tweeted.

"Maybe it's the case that in the hottest hours all the useful precautions are taken to avoid tragedies like the one that happened today in Lodi (outskirts of Milan)."

Several tourists in the country have already collapsed due to heat stroke, including a British man outside the Colosseum in Rome.

It has also been so hot in Spain - with land temperatures (the ground) surpassing 60C - that the satellite heat map that highlights scorching temperatures in red turned even darker – to black.

Temperature records have been broken on most of the continent, including France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, where highs of 40C were recorded again on Wednesday.

Sicily and Sardinia were forecast to be as high as 48C.

An area of high pressure - the Cerberus heatwave - named by the Italian Meteorological Society after the three-headed monster that features in Dante's inferno - is expected to bring extreme conditions in the next few days.

More than 60,000 people died in Europe as a result of the heat last year, prompting fears that this heatwave could cause many more deaths this summer.

A heatwave is a period of hot weather where temperatures are higher than is expected for the time of year.

Experts say periods of exceptionally hot weather are becoming more frequent and climate change means it is now normal to experience record-breaking temperatures.