More than 61,000 Europeans may have died after heat waves in 2022

More than 61,000 people may have died during extreme heatwaves in Europe last summer, according to new research, suggesting that countries’ heat preparedness efforts have failed fatally.

The study, conducted by researchers from the European Institutes of Health, estimated that more than 61,600 people died of heat-related causes in 35 European countries from late May to early September 2022, during the hottest summer on record in Europe.

The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, found that Mediterranean countries – Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – had the highest mortality rates according to population size.

“The Mediterranean is affected by desertification, and heat waves are only amplified during the summer because of these drier conditions,” said study co-author Joan Pallister, a professor at the Institute of Global Health in Barcelona.

In a summer when European countries were hit by severe wildfires and drought, Portugal recorded peak temperatures of 47°C in July? Just below the highest temperature ever recorded in the country, 47.3°C in 2003.

In absolute numbers, Italy, Spain and Germany had the highest number of heat deaths, at 18,010; 11,324; and 8,173 deaths, respectively.

As human-caused climate change increases temperatures, heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense. Extreme heat can kill by causing heatstroke or exacerbating cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, with the elderly being most at risk.

The researchers used epidemiological models to analyze how many deaths could be directly related to heat, among all the excess deaths recorded by European countries last summer? An extraordinarily high excess mortality rate.

Countries like France introduced national plans to deal with extreme heat after deadly heat waves in Europe in 2003 – with early warning systems and more cooling of green spaces in cities between measures.

But the researchers said the rising death toll over the past year indicates that these strategies are failing and urgently need to be strengthened.