Seniors died in stifling apartments. Emergency calls were left on hold. Doctors treated an onslaught of people sick from heat, sometimes in wards without air-conditioning.<\/p>\n
These are scenes that played out in Belgium, one of the world\u2019s wealthiest nations, on a recent summer weekend. They are also a warning to Europe.<\/p>\n
Europe is the fastest-warming continent, yet large parts remain ill prepared. As heat waves scorch its nations this summer, they are killing thousands in countries with strong health systems. In just one week in late June, there were around 16,000 excess deaths, or more people who died than usual, in Europe. Belgium, France and Germany were the worst affected, based on data collected by the European Mortality Monitoring Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n Belgium, known for cold and damp, not searing heat, had the highest excess deaths in Europe, making it a case study into what went wrong. In Wallonia, the region that makes up the country\u2019s south, the death rate was 77 percent higher than what would be expected between mid-June and early July. Some hospitals were overrun, with gurneys and patients lining the hallways and medical staff working without breaks in the unrelenting heat.<\/p>\n \u201cEach crisis is becoming increasingly severe,\u201d said Yves Coppieters, the health minister for Wallonia. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re failing to anticipate.\u201d<\/p>\n Climate change means that the issue is most likely here to stay. Across Europe, \u201cwe think the summers are hot now,\u201d said Joan Ballester Claramunt, a research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health who focuses on climate change and health. \u201cThe future that we\u2019re seeing, it could be much worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Belgium is a stark example of why heat waves can become deadly in countries more accustomed to cool weather. Emergency systems in some cases buckled under the pressure, and structural challenges left the most vulnerable to suffer.<\/p>\n The federal health ministry defended elements of the response and noted that hospital capacity had been scaled up during the crisis, but it acknowledged that some change was needed. \u201cI believe we must indeed learn lessons quickly,\u201d Frank Vandenbroucke, the Belgian minister of social affairs and public health, told lawmakers early last month.<\/p>\n During the late June wave, MontL\u00e9gia hospital, in the Belgian city of Li\u00e8ge, experienced a rush of patients so intense that in the emergency room healthier people were temporarily lined up in hallways so that those past the point of saving could have privacy while they died.<\/p>\n Dr. Arnaud Detroz, who was working that weekend, said his team was confronted with overheating cases that they had seen mostly in textbooks. \u201cIn our countries, at our latitudes, these cases are relatively rare,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u2018Very Crushing\u2019<\/p>\n Belgium is not accustomed to taking heat so seriously.<\/p>\n At the start of the June heat wave, Theo Francken, the defense minister, posted an image on Instagram of himself smiling in the sun with the caption, \u201cIt\u2019s warm for two days and we\u2019re all going to die again apparently.\u201d He criticized the press.<\/p>\n \u201cEnjoy the beautiful weather,\u201d he added<\/a>. \u201cAnd LIVE!\u201d<\/p>\n The weather quickly turned into a matter of life or death.<\/p>\n Temperatures shot up between mid-June and early July, surpassing 100 degrees in parts of Wallonia. The fact that it was early in the summer, before people had a chance to acclimatize, worsened the danger, experts said.<\/p>\n In the last weekend of June, the Belgian emergency call line was severely overwhelmed, according to medical groups whose representatives signed an open letter<\/a> protesting the meltdown. In some cases, they said, it took 10 minutes just to get through to an operator. (Bernard Quintin, the Belgian interior minister, told lawmakers that average waits were much shorter and noted that extra staff members were brought in.)<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have to wait for 10 minutes if you have a stroke or heart attack, it\u2019s quite a big problem,\u201d said Dr. Pierre-Louis Deudon, a general practitioner in the Brussels region who signed the letter.<\/p>\n Emergency rooms were also overrun in parts of Wallonia. During the peak of the heat wave, the number of emergency vehicles arriving at Grand H\u00f4pital de Charleroi, about an hour\u2019s drive west of Li\u00e8ge, rose from an average of 60 to up to 110 per day, said Dr. Laurent Peyskens, deputy head of the emergency department.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very crushing,\u201d Dr. Peyskens said.<\/p>\n Half of all emergency rooms in Wallonia lacked air-conditioning, said Dr. Phillippe Devos, director general at Unessa, a federation of Belgian health care providers in Brussels and Wallonia.<\/p>\n