Seven children among 49 people drowned across Russia

Seven children are among 49 people who have drowned in waters across Russia as scorching heat blankets large swaths of the country, the Ministry for Emergency Situations says.

"A total of 65 incidents were registered on the country's water bodies over the past 24 hours - 49 people died," the ministry said on Sunday on the Telegram messaging app.

That is 10 more drowning incidents than on the same day in 2023, Russia's RIA state news agency reported.

In the past week, Russians braved some of the hottest weather in more than a century, with Moscow breaking a 1917 record and cities across the world's biggest country sizzling in temperatures well above 35C.

Russia's Service for Hydrometeorology said on Friday on its website that abnormal, sweltering heat was expected across most of the south of European parts of Russia at the weekend, with temperatures rising to more than 40C in some places.

In the Nizhny Novgorod region in central Russia, a 10-year-old girl drowned in the vast Volga River and her six-year-old sister disappeared, with divers still searching for her, the emergency ministry said.

In the Bashkiria region, which lies between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, three people drowned, including a 16-year-old girl, the ministry said.