Europe saw at least 30,000 excess deaths across a blistering summer of back-to-back heatwaves and drought which scientists have blamed on man-made climate change, according to provisional figures.
Between mid-July and mid-August, the continent’s EuroMomo monitoring platform estimates that Europe saw more than 32,000 excess deaths — with summer yet to come to an end.
While EuroMomo does not publish breakdowns of deaths by country, various national health authorities have published provisional tolls covering comparable periods stretching roughly between the end of May and August.
An AFP count of those tallies found 33,000 excess deaths or deaths directly linked to the heat across just eight countries: Austria, Belgium, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Scientists have shown that recurring heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming, primarily caused by burning coal, oil and gas — and warn they are set to become more frequent, longer and more intense.
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Two deadly weeks
According to EuroMomo’s latest weekly estimates, the last week of June appears to have been the summer’s deadliest, with nearly 16,000 excess deaths recorded.
The first week of July follows in second place with some 8,000 deaths.
Both weeks coincided with one of the recurring exceptional heatwaves in which Europeans baked this summer, while widespread droughts provided ideal tinder-dry conditions for raging wildfires.
As EuroMomo’s most recent estimates will be refined over the next weeks, the total excess death toll is set to evolve.
The monitor’s model only includes official statistics from 23 European countries and excludes part of the continent’s east.
Unwanted German record
Germany, the European Union’s most populous country with 82 million people, saw 14,000 deaths linked to the heatwaves up until August 9, according to official figures.
That tally is a record since such records began in 2016, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
Like in other European countries, people over the age of 75 suffered the most, the institute said.
7,300 dead in France
France has already logged 7,300 excess deaths across the sweltering period between late May and July 22, according to the provisional toll from the public health authorities.
The summer’s tally is all but certain to rise, as the long heatwave which began in late July has just come to an end.
Almost 4,500 in Spain
Nearly 4,500 deaths blamed on the heat were recorded in Spain between June 1 and August 19 — the highest for that time of year since 2022, according to the Carlos III Health Institute.
July was mainland Spain’s joint-hottest month since records began in 1961, tied with July 2022, according to the AEMET national weather agency.
English record threatened
The UK health and safety authority estimates that England saw 2,877 heat-related deaths across May and June’s heatwaves, threatening to topple the historic tally of 2,985 from the summer of 2022.
It warned that the toll for 2026 as a whole could be substantially higher as a result of other periods of high heat.
2,570 in Belgium
Belgium’s provisional tally is even more deadly relative to its small population.
According to the Sciensano national public health institute’s estimates, the country saw 2,570 excess deaths between June 18 and July 17.
The toll is set to be updated in September to take into account the period from July 25 to August 16, which saw the beginning of the country’s worst wildfire in modern history, a spokeswoman told AFP.
Nearly 1,000 Dutch dead
AFP’s analysis of figures from the Netherlands’ RIVM institute for public health and the environment puts the number of excess deaths in the country between June 22 and July 5 at 968.
Hundreds dead in Austria, Portugal
Austria’s AGES agency for health and food security lists June’s tally of heatwave-related deaths as 396. According to the public data, available from 2017, that level is previously unseen for the month in the Alpine nation.
For its part, Portugal saw more than 600 excess deaths between mid-June and the end of July, according to figures from the DGS health authority analysed by AFP.
