Cooler temperatures Thursday brought relief from Europe's blistering heat wave, but experts warned that weather blamed for deaths, drying rivers and scorching wildfires could last through September.

Dogs and their owners take a shower at Bau Beach, the only beach on the Roman coast where dogs are allowed, approximately 33 kilometers (20 miles) from Rome, in Maccarese, Aug. 7, 2003. With temperatures remaining high above 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Farhrenheit), Romans head to the seaside for a breath of fresh air with their four-legged friends.  [AP]

In Belgium, clouds and a light morning rain kept the mercury from rising to a record-breaking 104 degrees as had been forecast by Belgium's Royal Meteorological Institute.

But temperatures hit 98.6 in the north, and were expected to "remain quite high," said Edward De Dycker, the institute's chief forecaster. "The heat wave continues."

Winds shifted to the north over Britain, lowering temperatures that had been in the mid-90s to as low as 72 degrees at Heathrow Airport. On Wednesday, London registered its highest-temperature ever — 95.7.

Speed restrictions remained for some British trains because of fear that rails would buckle in the heat, which Network Rail said already had happened 21 times from Monday to Wednesday.

Some towns in northeastern France have had no train service since Tuesday due to buckled rails, the national rail authority, SNCF, said, adding that with the tracks at 127 degrees, repair work had not yet started.

It was 97 in Paris Thursday afternoon, compared with Wednesday's high of 103 — just shy of the all-time high of 104.7 set in July 1947.

Still, the death toll blamed on the heat wave rose to some 40 after Croatian police said a 41-year-old policeman guarding the U.S. Embassy in a Zagreb suburb died of heart failure likely triggered by the heat.

Two elderly women in southwestern Spain died Thursday of heat stroke, increasing to 16 the number of fatalities blamed on the hot weather in that country, officials said.

Spanish authorities also said some 1,600 people were evacuated from a campground and several villas in the northeast when a forest fire spread through surrounding hills. Two people were arrested on suspicion of setting fires in central Spain, where most blazes were either out or under control.

The temperature of the Mediterranean sea off the Spanish coast has risen to 89.6, 10 degrees above normal and the highest in 45 years, Spain's National Meteorological Institute reported.

Forest fires also eased in Portugal, where an estimated 400,300 acres have burned so far this year, most in the last three weeks, killing at least 14 people. Blazes fanned by hot winds near the French Riviera and in Corsica killed five people last week.

Two swimming-related deaths in Britain on Tuesday were linked to efforts to escape the heat, which became difficult as water levels dropped in lakes and rivers.

Italian authorities were forced to close a road near the resort of Sorrento, a picturesque town on the Gulf of Naples, for a few hours to clear away charred trees.

Scores of people were evacuated as a precaution in Tuscany and the northwestern Liguria region, according to the Civil Defense Department. Scattered blazes were reported in Lazio, the region including Rome.

Weather experts from Italy's state-funded CNR research center called the heat wave one of the five worst in the last 150 years and said it would likely last until next month.

Intense monsoon activity in Africa south of the Sahara has been blamed in part for the merciless heat.

While southern Europe is used to sizzling summers, the heat has prompted some unusual measures in the north.

A model of Elizabeth Taylor in the Amsterdam department store Bijenkorf had to be returned to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum because it was in danger of melting.

The central German city of Goettingen ruled that a three-day reggae festival beginning Friday could only go ahead under a strict smoking ban, citing the risk of forest fires.

In Belgium, polar bears at the Antwerp zoo were fed their apples and fish popsicle-style — frozen in blocks of ice. Authorities in the medieval city of Bruges gave the drivers of horse-drawn carriages permission to take off their hats. However, it ruled out wearing shorts.

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