The United Kingdom is grappling with record summer temperatures. The heat is so intense that even roads are melting.
In Stockport town in Manchester, a busy street was virtually liquified earlier this week, Manchester Evening News reported.
A witness told the newspaper that it sounded like cars were passing through puddles.
Another resident said: "It was that soft your feet got stuck in it if you walked across. The tarmac was all stuck in the treads of my tyres."
The UK's Road Surface Treatment Association says temperatures have to hit 50 degrees Celsius for roads to melt.
"However, even a sunny day in the 20Cs can be enough to generate 50C on the ground as the dark asphalt road surface absorbs a lot of heat and this builds up during the day with the hottest period between noon and 5pm," it adds.
With temperatures in July and August expected to be higher than average, more road-melting incidents are expected in the country.
Local authorities are responding by spreading granite dust to absorb the soft bitumen on molten roads.
Temperatures in the UK crossed 40 degrees Celsius for the first time on July 19 as an intense heatwave caused wildfires to erupt in western Europe.
In parts of England, railway lines and schools were closed because of the heat, news agency AFP reported.
Rising temperatures have been linked to climate change, with experts saying the worst was yet to come.
Heatwaves "are becoming more frequent and this negative trend will continue... at least until the 2060s, independent of our success in climate mitigation efforts," the World Meteorological Organization was quoted as saying by AFP. "In the future these kinds of heatwaves are going to be normal, and we will see even stronger extremes."
(With inputs from AFP)
