The two children, found in cardiorespiratory arrest, could not be revived by emergency teams. Everything indicates that they were locked in the vehicle after entering it without their mother’s knowledge.
Two children, from two and four yearswere found dead inside the family car, in a residential parking lot in Carpentras, in the south of France, during a heat wave, according to the French Public Prosecutor’s Office.
For now, according to the Carpentras prosecutor, Helene Mourgesthe causes of the children’s deaths remain under investigation, although “the heat wave is the main hypothesis“.
According to the newspaper, the mother had returned home after going shopping and was packing the products when the two children went to the garage. The minors would have entered the vehicle after momentarily escaping their mother’s surveillance, ending up locked inside.
The 33-year-old mother received assistance from emergency services and has not yet been interviewed by authorities.
The case occurred in a context of exceptionally high temperatures. For almost a week now, France has been affected by a heat wave of intensity considered “exceptional“, comparable to that recorded in August 2003, which caused around 15 thousand deaths in the country.
This Monday, 49 departments were placed on red alert due to the extreme heat, while authorities reinforce calls to the population to avoid prolonged exposure to high temperatures.
Not Sunday, three elderly people died in their homes, in the department of Girondein the southwest of the country, due to high temperatures, according to local authorities.
The intense heat also coincided with an increase in accidents in bathing areas and water courses, with at least 13 people lost his life due to drowning over the weekend, according to civil protection services.
