Sawt Falasteen - At least 12,000 excess deaths in Europe's June heatwave: AFP analysis

During this period, all-time temperature records were broken in several European countries, as well as for the month of June in the UK and in Switzerland.

And while the mortality statistics remain provisional, they are an early indication of the human cost of these record-breaking heatwaves, which are becoming increasingly common.

AFP analysed data on excess deaths between June 22 and 28 from Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.

During this period, the height of the heatwave in several countries, around 10,000 excess deaths were recorded in these countries.

Another 2,200 deaths were linked to the heatwave in England and Wales between June 18 and 28, according to estimates released by Britain's Met Office.

Provisional data from the European Mortality Monitoring (EuroMOMO) also recorded a significant rise in excess deaths in the final week of June: it put the figure at 14,260. Their figures for that week drew on official statistics from 24 countries, accounting for some 400 million residents.

EuroMOMO's figures do not include parts of eastern Europe.

"The summer is not yet over," Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, warned in a statement.

"This is not a natural disaster and it's repeating itself every year because too many governments are still treating heat as a weather event rather than a health emergency," he added.

"The tools to prevent most of these deaths exist. "The guidance is published. The evidence is there," he argued.

"What governments do next is a choice, and this summer shows what's at stake."

- 'Dramatic' -

These figures indicate that this week had the highest rate of excess deaths among all June weeks since EuroMOMO began pulling these European figures together in 2020.

The only other summer week in which a higher rate of excess deaths has been recorded over that seven-year period was a week in July 2022 when Covid was still active in many European countries.

"There's no other reasons for excess mortality that we know of than heat -- and it's quite dramatic," said Lasse Vestergaard, an epidemiologist at Denmark's Statens Serum Institut and coordinator of EuroMOMO.

But he urged caution in interpreting the most recent figures -- according to EuroMOMO, it takes four weeks for estimates to become sufficiently consolidated.

The initial figures released by national bodies have often been revised upwards since the end of the June heatwave.

- Thousands dead in Germany -

Different countries have different ways of compiling the relevant figure.

Spain's excess mortality monitor MoMo attributed 610 deaths to the heat between June 22 and 28 -- nearly two thirds of whom were more than 85 years old.

But over the same period, Germany recorded 5,780 excess deaths - compared to the average of the four previous years, said Germany's federal office of statistics, Destatis.

Compared to the two previous weeks, Destatis had recorded 7,100 excess deaths.

Germany's public health authority, the Robert Koch Institute, put it this way: more people had died from the heat so far this summer in Germany than over the previous six years.

During the same week of June 22-28, France recorded 2,025 excess deaths compared to the previous week.

Belgium's public health body Sciensano recorded 1,747 excess deaths between June 18 and July 1 -- 750 of them over just two days, June 27-28.

An AFP analysis of data from public health bodies in the relevant countries showed nearly 600 excess deaths between June 22 and 28 in the Netherlands; 220 during the same period in Switzerland; and 23 excess deaths in Luxembourg.

Italy's health authorities recorded a slight rise in deaths among people over 85 between June 24 and 30 in northern Italy. But these figures only covered the 54 main cities there.

Several countries in central and eastern Europe who were also hit by the heatwave in late June, such as Hungary and Slovakia, have not yet published provisional figures.

The World Weather Attribution group of scientists has said that these temperatures would have been "virtually impossible" in June without climate change.

B.Khalifa--SF-PST