Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- France recorded 1,000 extra deaths during a record-breaking heat wave last week.
- WHO's Tedros warns Europe is warming fastest, urging action on heat preparedness.
- Heat-related emergencies and infrastructure damage reported across Europe, affecting transport and public health.
BERLIN — France saw around 1,000 additional deaths last week at the height of its record-smashing heat wave, the country's public health agency said Sunday, as the head of the World Health Organization warned that Europe is now the fastest-warming continent and needs to do more to protect its citizens.
Temperature records were toppled in several countries on the weekend, wildfires were sparked in Germany and Berlin police used water cannons to cool down the crowds.
Meanwhile, the heat wave slowly moved toward eastern parts of the continent.
Germany marked a new record for the third day in a row with 107 degrees Fahrenheit in Neißemünde, near the border with Poland. The Czech Republic also experienced its hottest day ever with 106.4 F.
A new study from the World Weather Attribution, a Europe-based collaboration of scientists, reported Friday that the record-breaking heat and humidity in Europe this past week would not have been possible without climate change.
The rapid study found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.
France reported a surge in deaths last week, including a sharp increase at private homes, especially in the Paris region, the national public health agency said Sunday.
There were more than 1,200 deaths on Wednesday, when France was sweltering under its hottest temperatures, increasing to more than 1,400 deaths on each of the two following days, Public Health France said. In April and May, before the heat wave, France's rate of deaths was about 900 to 1,000 per day.
The agency concluded that France experienced a total of at least 1,000 additional deaths during those three days alone, an estimate it cautioned is likely to increase as more data is collected, including for deaths at home.
The increase was sharpest in areas under red warnings of extreme heat, it said. Those warnings blanketed about three-quarters of the country at the peak of the heat wave. The agency said that 85% of the deaths involved people aged 65 and above.
"Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday on X. "Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling."
Driven by climate change and global warming, the "once-in-a-generation" heat wave is now occurring nearly every year, Tedros said, adding that more than 1,300 excess deaths have been recorded since June 21 linked to high temperatures in Europe.
"Heat stress is often called the 'silent killer' — and European homes, workplaces and schools were not built for these temperatures," Tedros warned as he called on European countries to implement action plans. He said they should focus on preparedness, prevention and stronger health system responses.
In Sweden, several people were injured when they were hit by lightning at an amusement park, the country's TT news agency reported.
Three adults were taken to the hospital, among them a woman with serious injuries, after the lightning struck the Tosselilla Sommarland park in Tomelilla in the south of the country.
Across Europe, the extreme heat has been followed by severe thunderstorms.
Denmark, which marked new temperature records on Saturday, recorded 1,156 lighting strikes by Sunday morning, according to public broadcaster DR.
In Gohrischheide, in eastern Germany, a fire broke out in a large forest that's still contaminated with ammunition from World War II, which made the firefighters' efforts even more complicated.
Similarly, a major firefighting operation was underway in southwest Germany near the village of Traisen, where the heat sparked a forest fire in an area that also contained unexploded ordnance. Firefighters had to be temporarily stop after explosions took place and an ordnance disposal unit was brought in to continuously assess the situation, German news agency dpa reported. Some 650 people in Traisen had to leave their homes Sunday afternoon because the fire continued to spread.
The big cities' fire departments were busy sending out ambulances to people suffering from heat-related illnesses. In Berlin, an additional 500 ambulance dispatches were reported on Saturday, most of them heat-related.
The German capital's police found a way to help suffering Berliners and tourists alike. They put up two huge water cannons — usually used to disperse unruly protesters — in front of the city's iconic Brandenburg Gate and sprayed the cool water across the cheering crowd.
The heat also continued to damage the country's infrastructure, with the concrete surface on countless highways breaking up, and a weekend warning by national rail operator Deutsche Bahn to avoid all unnecessary train travel.
More than 600 passengers had to be evacuated from an overheated train in Brandenburg after a tree fell onto an overhead power line during a storm on Saturday evening. The train, which was on its way from Hamburg to Prague, lost power. The air conditioners stopped working and the doors were locked until emergency responders forced them open. Two people were hospitalized with heat-related problems, dpa reported.
In the eastern city of Leipzig, no trams will be running until early Monday morning due to heat damage to tracks and switches. The Leipzig Public Transportation Authority said that the high temperatures had caused the joint sealant for asphalt and concrete in switches and tracks to run and clump together in many places throughout the city's network.
Contributing: Karel Janicek
