France and Spain have faced particularly high temperatures in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
The heat has also reduced water levels on major rivers, hindering shipping, which prompted several German states to temporarily suspend some curbs on lorry traffic this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk of heatwaves and the associated fatalities was underestimated,\u201d Berger told Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe need to raise awareness of the dangers arising from this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Berger, who was speaking after Swiss Re reported a 9 per cent increase in net profit for the first half of 2026, said it was too early to say definitively how the excess mortality would affect the Zurich-based company\u2019s figures.<\/p>\n
The Robert Koch Institute for public health estimated there had been about 11,900 heat-related deaths in Germany this year by late July, mostly due to extreme temperatures in late June.<\/p>\n
SEE ALSO<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland loosened road haulage curbs on Sunday to ease transport bottlenecks caused by water levels on rivers including the Rhine.<\/p>\n \u201cLow water levels are putting a strain on supply chains. That\u2019s why we\u2019re taking action and creating additional transport options by road at short notice,\u201d said Markus Wolf, Rhineland-Palatinate\u2019s state secretary for transport.<\/p>\n The looser curbs on lorry traffic on Sundays and holidays will apply until the end of August and could stay in place in some states until September, authorities said. REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He notes it is too early to say how excess mortality from the weather will affect the company\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[1344,46027,41,17],"class_list":["post-113464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-germany","tag-heatwave","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117068979626406568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"France\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d3ead00e426b77da54c9812d4067138bd50086925dcda5eb2dafee476751f482.webp\")
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