Europe's Heatwave Came With a Spike in Deaths

Europe's late-June heat blast appears to have carried a deadly cost: more than 10,000 additional deaths in a single week, new data show. EuroMOMO, a monitoring network supported by EU and WHO agencies, reported about 10,650 excess deaths across 27 countries from June 22-28, with more than 9,000 among people 65 and older, per Reuters. A Danish epidemiologist who helps run EuroMOMO said the spike is "really high" for that time of year and hard to attribute to anything other than the extreme temperatures.

EuroMOMO did not specify how many excess deaths occurred in each country. Germany's Federal Statistical Office has said it recorded 5,486 excess deaths in the last full week of June, per Bloomberg. In France, another 1,000 excess deaths came over a few days, per the New York Times. And a study, published Monday, estimates roughly 2,200 heat-related deaths in England and Wales from June 18-28, per the Guardian. Scientists say the heatwave, which toppled records and disrupted daily life in various European countries, would have been "virtually impossible" without human-driven climate change.