Deaths in France surged 30% during hottest week of record June heatwave

The number of deaths recorded in France surged by nearly 30% during the the hottest week of the record-breaking heatwave that scorched much of Europe last month, the public health authority has said, adding that it expects the toll to rise further.

Public Health France said on Friday there had been “an increase of 29.1%, corresponding to 2,025 additional deaths compared with the previous week”. It said the figure was probably “an underestimate” and “mortality will rise further”.

The new and still incomplete figures doubled the authority’s first, preliminary estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths that it gave last Sunday. That earlier estimate covered just three of the hottest days of extreme heat.

Belgium’s health ministry said excess mortality totalled about 1,200 between 18 and 29 June, with 530 of the ⁠deaths among people 85 or older. The Dutch government said the heatwave led to about 480 excess deaths, mainly of elderly people.

The updated French tally covers the week of 22-28 June, during which France registered its hottest-ever days, with previous day- and nighttime highs shattered in cities and towns across the country. Hundreds of records also fell in other parts of Europe.

Public Health France said it had counted 8,973 deaths so far for that week but cautioned that the number was still only partial. It said the preliminary total was 29% more than the 6,948 deaths registered for the previous week of 15-21 June.

It said the increase was concentrated almost entirely among people aged 45 and over, with the over 65s worst affected. “Although we are seeing a clear rise among 45- to 64-year-olds, people aged 65 and over account for the largest share of deaths,” it said.

Deaths in the home recorded the biggest increase, nearly doubling within a single week, and Paris was the worst-affected region; the number of deaths recorded in the capital rose by 62% week-on-week, Public Health France said in its weekly report.

Nicolas Revel, director general of the Paris public hospital system, has said he expected the death toll from the June heatwave to be lower than that of 2003, but “probably” higher than an extreme heat episode last year that claimed 5,700 lives.

More than two-thirds of Europeans experienced 35C-plus temperatures during the June event, AFP said, basing its calculations on temperature data from the European Drought Observatory and population figures from the Joint Research Centre.

The news agency said areas inhabited by about 410 million people in Europe were concerned including almost the entire population of mainland France and more than three-quarters of the combined populations of Spain and Italy.

All-time temperature records were broken in Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia and Hungary, as well as June records in the UK and Switzerland. France recorded its hottest June since records began in 1947, averaging 3.8C above seasonal norms for 1991 to 2020, Météo-France said.