France recorded about 1,000 excess deaths this week because of an “exceptional” heatwave that’s continuing to scorch Europe. Temperature records were toppled in several countries over the weekend.
The figures were released as the head of the World Health Organisation warned that Europe is the fastest-warming continent on earth and that countries need to do better to protect their citizens.
Record temperatures pushed daily deaths in France above 1,400 on Thursday and Friday, from 900 to 1,000 per day in April and May, Santé Publique France said in a statement Sunday. The figures are likely to be revised higher because they’re based on digital certificates, which typically account for about 60 per cent of fatalities nationwide, the public health authority said.
Of the deaths recorded since Wednesday, 85 per cent were people aged 65 or higher, it said.
“Extreme heat of these past days has a lagged effect, notably for fragile people but also for some young people,” French health minister Stéphanie Rist said in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche. The effects can persist for weeks for people suffering chronic diseases, which means that pressure on health services is expected to last beyond the drop in temperatures, she said.
The government recently earmarked €100 million in emergency spending to buy air conditioners, fans and other equipment for hospitals.
France experienced its hottest day on record on Wednesday with 40.3 degrees recorded in Paris. Video: Naomi O’Leary
“Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling,” World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the X platform.
“Driven by climate change and global warming, the phenomenon of the ‘once-in-a-generation’ heatwave is now occurring nearly annually. We were warned,” he wrote, adding that Europe’s homes, workplaces and schools were ill-equipped for extreme heat. “Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” he said.
Scientists said the stifling heatwave would have been virtually impossible without man-made climate change, which has made this week’s night-time temperatures 100 times more likely than they would have been even two decades ago.
Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were braced for record temperatures of over 40 degrees on Sunday as the heatwave spread east.
Poland’s temperature record of 40.2 degrees from 1921 was broken on Sunday, when it baked under its new all-time high of 40.5 degrees. The Polish government’s security agency sent out text messages urging people to “avoid the sun and strenuous activity”, drink water and wear hats throughout the weekend. Multiple cities set up water curtains to help residents keep cool in the heat.
A restaurant staff member sprays people with water to help cool them at the Old Town Square in Prague, Czech Republic on Saturday. Photograph: Fadi Yousef/EPA
The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute said it expected temperatures to exceed 41 degrees “by quite a bit”.
A record of 40.6 degrees was measured in the Czech Republic on Saturday. Temperatures did not drop below 20 degrees at more than 100 meteorological stations overnight. On Sunday the country experienced its hottest day ever with 41.1 degrees.
The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute said it expected further records for the warmest night ever to be broken on Sunday night.
A man cools off at a mist station during earlier this week. Photograph: Fadi Yousef/EPA
Night-time records were also broken in Germany, with Bautzen in eastern Saxony reporting an overnight minimum temperature of 29.4 degrees. The Berlin police used water cannon to help residents of the capital cool off on Saturday and repeated the operation on Sunday. German rail operator Deutsche Bahn advised against all non-essential travel over the weekend.
Germany marked a new daytime temperature record for the third day in a row on Sunday with 41.7 degrees in Neisemunde, near the border with Poland.
Germany’s train services were reduced on a main rail line in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and trams were suspended in the eastern city of Leipzig due to heat damage to tracks and switches.
Many people hunkered down at home, reluctant to go outside until the sun went down, local media reported.
The prolonged heat wave caused significant damage to the tram infrastructure in Leipzig, Germany. Photograph: Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP 
Police spray water canon over tourists at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. Photograph: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
In Slovakia, temperatures above 39 degrees were reported in the southwest of the country, with the all-time record of 40.3 degrees, set in 2007, likely to be beaten on Sunday or Monday. The country could see three consecutive days of temperatures above 40 degrees for the first time since records began in 1871, forecasts show.
The Danish Meteorological Institute meanwhile reported a 37 degrees reading north of the city of Aarhus on Saturday, the highest on record since measurements began in 1874.
Across Europe, the extreme heat has been followed by severe thunderstorms.
Denmark had recorded 1,156 lighting strikes by Sunday morning, according to public broadcaster DR.
In Sweden, several people were injured when they were hit by lightning at an amusement park, the country’s TT news agency reported.
Three adults were taken to hospital, among them a woman with serious injuries, after lightning struck the Tosselilla Sommarland park in Tomelilla in the south of the country.
Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant will likely need to reduce output again on Sunday due to the high temperature of the Danube river that it uses as a coolant, the government said.
Parisians swimming in the Canal Saint-Martin on Saturday. Photograph: Brune Simon/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
In Italy, the flow of the Po has dwindled, allowing seawater to advance as far as 18km (11 miles) inland and raising fears for agriculture and protected wetlands in the river delta.
Dozens of people seeking relief from the heat are reported to have drowned.
Rescuers were searching for the husband of the country’s cabinet minister Eugenia Roccella, who went missing on Saturday while swimming in Lake Vico, 70km (44 miles) from the capital, Rome.
[ The media should treat this heat as the very bad news it isOpens in new window ]
France’s weather agency said the extreme heat had diminished in most parts of the country, but some areas in the northeast were still subject to a heat advisory.
Health minister Stephanie Rist told La Tribune newspaper the impact of the heatwave could linger for as long as 10 days after the weather had ebbed.
“The episode is not finished,” she told broadcaster BFM.
The storms that battered portions of France late on Saturday brought in some cooler air, but they led to power outages for thousands of households.
On Sunday afternoon, 36,000 households in northern and central France were without power, electricity provider Enedis said in an update. – Agencies