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Europe\u2019s record-breaking heat last year has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths, after extreme temperatures reached \u201chighly vulnerable\u201d parts of the continent.<\/p>\n
New research estimates a staggering 62,775 heat-related deaths<\/strong><\/a> occurred in Europe between 1 June and 30 September, 2024 – a 23.6 per cent spike compared to the previous summer<\/strong><\/a>. The summer of 2024 was Europe\u2019s hottest on record, according to the European Union\u2019s Copernicus Climate Service.\u00a0<\/p>\n The study, led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health<\/strong><\/a> (ISGlobal), focused on 654 regions in 32 countries and linked more than 181,000 deaths to heat-related causes from 2022 to 2024.<\/p>\n However, Chris Hocknell, Director at Eight Versa, a sustainability consultancy in London, says it\u2019s possible these statistics have been significantly downplayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMany heat-related deaths don’t get reported,\u201d he tells Euronews Green. \u201cIt\u2019s similar in some ways to Covid: heat often compounds existing health conditions, which is why older people are particularly vulnerable.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not always clear whether heat stress was the direct cause of death or a contributing factor, but the statistical signal is clear; mortality spikes during extreme heat events.\u201d<\/p>\n Heat-related deaths hit Italy the hardest<\/p>\n Published in Nature Medicine, the study found that the country with the highest number of heat deaths was Italy<\/strong><\/a>, where more than 19,000 people died during the four-month period.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is believed that the country\u2019s soaring temperatures, which reached a sweltering 40\u00b0C in cities such as Rome and Palermo, as well as its large elderly population, both contributed to the high death toll.\u00a0<\/p>\n In fact, in people aged over 75, the estimated mortality rate was 323 per cent higher than in all other age groups. The number of heat-related deaths among women was also 46.7 per cent higher compared to men.<\/p>\n Which European countries saw the most heat-related deaths in 2024?<\/p>\n Spain saw the second-highest total number of heat-related deaths in 2024 at 6,743. It is followed by Germany with 6,282, Greece with 5,980 and Romania with 4,943.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bulgaria (3,414), Serbia (2,515), France (2,451), Poland (1,780) and Hungary (1,443) also made the list of the 10 hardest hit countries. <\/p>\n In terms of mortality incidence – which refers to the number of deaths relative to a country\u2019s population\u00a0 – Greece witnessed the highest heat-related death rates at 574 deaths per million.<\/p>\n This was followed by Bulgaria (530 deaths per million) and Serbia (379 deaths per million).<\/p>\n Researchers highlight that these rates are \u201csignificantly higher\u201d than those estimated for the 2022 and 2023 summer periods. For example, Greece recorded 373 deaths per million in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Europe is warming \u2018at twice the global average\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cEurope is the continent that is warming most quickly, at twice the global average,\u201d says Tom\u00e1\u0161 Jano\u0161, ISGlobal and Recetox researcher and first author of the study.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWithin Europe, the Mediterranean basin and south-eastern regions are emerging as major climate change hotspots, facing the greatest impacts on health and with a substantial rise in heat-related mortality projected during the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n ISGlobal\u2019s findings come after another scorching summer across Europe, which resulted in a slew of dangerous wildfires, the temporary closure of tourist attractions and extreme heat deaths making the headlines. \u00a0<\/p>\n