COPENHAGEN: More than 62,700 people died in Europe from heat-related causes in 2024, according to research published in Nature Medicine on Monday (Sep 22), with women and the elderly representing the largest part of the death toll.
Researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, known as ISGlobal, who obtained daily mortality records from 32 European countries, estimated over 181,000 people died from heat-related complications over the summer months of 2022 to 2024.
Between Jun 1 and Sep 30, 2024, the mortality rate rose by 23 per cent from the same period a year earlier, although the number of deaths was still just below the 67,900 deaths recorded in 2022, the first year of the study.
“This number is saying to us that we should start adapting our populations,” said Tomás Janos, the lead author of the study.
HOTTEST SUMMER ON RECORD IN EUROPE
The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record in Europe, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Two-thirds of the estimated deaths occurred in Southern Europe. Italy, which has Europe’s largest population of elderly proportionally, and experienced soaring temperatures all three summers, had the highest absolute death toll each summer.
