Heavy downpours lashed South Korea for a ninth day on Monday as rescue workers struggled to search for survivors in landslides, buckled homes and swamped vehicles in the most destructive storm to hit the country this year.

At least 40 people have died, 34 others are injured and more than 10,000 people have had to evacuate from their homes since July 9, when heavy rain started pounding the country. The severest damage has been concentrated in South Korea's central and southern regions.

Millions around the world have been seeking refuge from the scorching sun as climate change, a strong El Nino and summer in the Northern Hemisphere converge, toppling temperature records.

In Phoenix, temperatures have hit 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) for around two weeks. Volunteers are helping residents, typically hardened by the desert's sweltering summers and insulated by air conditioning, that now need relief.

Disgruntled tourists bemoaned the temporary closing of the Acropolis in Athens on Friday as Greek authorities proactively shut the world monument's gates between midday and early evening amid a heat wave that continues to grip southern Europe.

Red Cross staff handed out bottled water to tourists wilting in long lines hoping to beat the closure and scale the steps up to the gleaming Parthenon temple as temperatures were expected to peak above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in the Greek capital.

Vermont prepared for the next round of storms — and possibly a tornado — as people took advantage of calm weather Thursday to clean up from historic flooding that damaged thousands of homes, businesses and roads, and left some residents stranded.

As floodwaters receded, the good news was that there were no new rescue missions, dams were holding up and more roads reopened. The bad news was that strong thunderstorms were expected to move into parts of the state by Thursday night, which could cause more flash flooding, Gov. Phil Scott said at a news conference. Conditions could spawn a tornado, he said. And the state could get more heavy rain over the weekend.

Tourists in central Athens huddled under mist machines and zoo animals in Madrid were fed fruit popsicles Thursday as southern Europeans suffered through a heat wave that was projected to get much worse heading into the weekend.

Temperatures in parts of Mediterranean Europe were forecast to reach as high as 45 degrees Celsius (113 F) starting Friday.

Spain sweltered under an unrelenting heat wave as temperatures started to build toward what is forecast to be a torrid weekend across southern Europe.

Spain's weather service said thermometers could potentially hit 45 C (113 F) in southeastern areas of the Iberian Peninsula, which are under alert for extreme heat. That mark was reached Monday in the village of Loja near Granada at the start of the heat wave that is causing restless nights across the country.

Warmer, drier weather because of an earlier than usual El Nino is expected to hamper rice production across Asia, hitting global food security in a world still reeling from the impacts of the war in Ukraine.

An El Nino is a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns, and climate change is making them stronger. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this one in June, a month or two earlier than it usually does. This gives it time to grow. Scientists say there's a one in four chance it will expand to supersized levels.

After a historically wet winter and a cloudy spring, California's summer was in full swing Thursday as a heat wave that's been scorching much of the U.S. Southwest brings triple digit temperatures and an increased risk of wildfires.

Blistering conditions will build Friday and throughout the weekend in the central and southern parts of California, where many residents should prepare for the hottest weather of the year, the National Weather Service warned.

Schools and colleges were closed after record monsoon rains led to massive waterlogging, road caves-in, collapsed homes and gridlocked traffic in large parts of northern India this week, killing more than 100 people, officials said Thursday.

At least 88 people died and more than 100 were injured in the worst hit-mountainous Himachal Pradesh state where cars, buses, bridges and houses were swept away by swirling flood waters, a state government statement said. The region is nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of New Delhi.

Mohammed Hamid Nour is only 23, but he is already nostalgic for how Iraq's Mesopotamian marshes once were before drought dried them up, decimating his herd of water buffaloes.

Even at their centre in Chibayish, only a few expanses of the ancient waterways -- home to a Marsh Arab culture that goes back millennia -- survive, linked by channels that snake through the reeds.