The heat wave in Europe left almost 20,000 dead in June alone, in one of the deadliest summers in recent decades

EuroMOMO, the network that centralizes data from national health authorities, estimates that in reality There could have been almost 20,000 deaths due to the heat wave of those days. That would make that week the deadliest in Europe since the historic heat wave of 2003, above any week of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data is extracted by calculating the excess deaths with respect to equal periods of previous years without heat waves.

The German Robert Koch Institute revised its first estimate upwards this week and now calculates that the heat wave took away 5,120 people. The majority, 4,270 fatalities, were over 75 years old. In Germany the heat wave sparked a harsh political debate. Environmentalists harshly criticized Prime Minister Friedrich Merz, who since coming to power has reduced funding for policies to protect against climate change just as these extreme episodes increase in intensity and frequency.

Germany, since Merz’s arrival, is one of the countries that has put the most pressure in Brussels to dilute European commitments to fight the climate crisis and allow companies to continue polluting for longer and paying less for it. MEPs from Merz’s party are also among those who most criticize the entire European Green Deal because they believe it damages the competitiveness of European industry.

France was the country in which the data revision has been most spectacular. During the first assessment, published shortly after the heat wave, the French health authorities estimated the excess number of deaths attributable to the intense heat at around 2,000. But this week they increased that first estimate to 5,764 deaths counting from July 17 to July 2. Is 36.2% more deaths than expected on those dates. A third of the excess deaths occur in the Paris region, which does not concentrate even 20% of the French population.

Belgium, with a population of 11.6 million inhabitants (17% of the French population or 14% of the German population) suffered an excess mortality of almost 2,000 deaths between June 18 and 29.

Health authorities assure that the country suffered in those days the highest daily mortality in its recent history. On June 27, at least 640 Belgians died due to the heat wave, a figure that was not reached even during the worst of the covid pandemic. For the Belgians it was the worst heat wave in their history in terms of fatalities.

Spain, which has almost five times the Belgian population, suffered relatively fewer victims. partly because The Iberian Peninsula is used to heat waves and therefore better prepared. Beyond the massive use of air conditioning to cool homes, workplaces, schools, public transportation and hospitals, in much of the country homes are built so that they heat up as little as possible. In northern Europe it is the other way around, they are built so that they are heated as much as possible by the sun.

The Spanish figure is close to 1,000 deaths due to the heat wave, in the absence of a definitive estimate in the coming weeks. The Spanish experienced the second hottest June in their history with an average temperature 3.2 degrees higher than the average for that month.

The British authorities do not yet want to finalize figures, but they talk about several thousand additional deaths, especially in the south of England and Wales. What is already known is that the London Ambulance Service recorded the highest number of calls for potentially fatal emergencies in its history during the last week of June and that the capital’s hospitals had to activate extraordinary plans to deal with an avalanche of patients much higher than normal.

Italy is the only country in Western Europe that has not yet published figures, but regional authorities have already said that they have had increases in hospitalizations and deaths.

The World Health Organization and the European Commission have been warning for years that These heat waves in Europe will become more and more frequentmore intense and will last longer. The old continent is the region of the world that is warming the fastest, twice as fast as the world average. Starting Monday, the next heat wave begins, with temperatures once again touching 40 degrees throughout the south of the continent and up to half of France or Germany. Brussels expects 34 degrees next Thursday.