London/Paris/Berlin: As many as 1,300 people may have died in Europe due to the unprecedented early summer heatwave raging across the continent, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
Temperature records were broken across the continent again on Sunday – including in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic – as the extreme heat continued to move east, as reported by BBC.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said more than 1,300 excess deaths had been recorded since 21 June “linked to high temperatures in Europe”, in a post on X.
“Heat stress is often called the ‘silent killer’ – and European homes, workplaces and schools were not built for these temperatures,” he said.
France’s national health ministry said on Sunday morning that there had been around 1,000 more deaths than expected in the country since Wednesday.
It said that many of the extra fatalities are among those aged 65 over, after logging a 40% rise in the number of people dying at home.
“Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” Ghebreyesus warned.
He said that millions of people across the continent are currently “living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling”.
Germany experienced its hottest-ever day for the third consecutive
day on Sunday after 41.7C was recorded in the east of the country, preliminary data showed.
A station in Coschen, near the Polish border in eastern Brandenburg, recorded 41.7 degrees Celsius around 4 pm local time.
The Czech Republic also set its second temperature record in two days, recording 41.1 degrees Celsius at Doksany, north of Prague, the meteorological institute CHMI said.
The all-time temperature record was also broken in Poland with the town of Slubice recording 40.5 degrees Celsius, a spokeswoman for the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) AFP on Sunday.
According to Ghebreyesus, climate change was responsible for the extreme weather. He warned that Europe was warming at “twice the global average”.
“Driven by climate change and global warming, the phenomenon of the ‘once-in-a-generation’ heatwave is now occurring nearly annual,” he said.
The WHO chief called on European countries to “implement heat health action plans”, as part of a push to safeguard health in the face of climate change.
Drastic measures have been taken by countries to prevent heat-related illnesses. The Dutch music festival Defqon.1 was cancelled on Thursday following an unprecedented code red warning for extreme heat.
Drinking of takeaway alcohol in public has been banned in Paris. The city has also cancelled the pride march to help stretched emergency services.
According to interior minister Laurent Nuñez, at least 74 people have drowned in France since the beginning of the heatwave, with most deaths occurring in “unsupervised bodies of water such as rivers, lakes and ponds”.
The record-breaking June heatwave has been blamed on a so-called “heat dome” effect. This weather pattern results in air sinking down through the atmosphere, which compresses and heats up as it hits the ground.
This sinking air also dries out, meaning no clouds can form, so strong sunshine is able to heat the ground up even further.