Germany: June heat wave linked to 5,000 excess deaths

Germany's main public health institute announced on Thursday that the country had experienced at least 5,120 heat-related deaths so far this year, most of them during the June heat wave that paralyzed Europe for more than a week.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said that around 4,270 of those deaths were people aged 75 and older.

In late June, temperatures in parts of the country reached over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Most buildings in Germany are not built with such high temperatures in mind, including many hospitals and care homes that still do not have air conditioning.

National authorities in France also reported thousands of excess deaths due to the June heat wave, as well as hundreds in Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

June 2026 was EU's hottest on record

The news came the same day as a report from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service that this has been the hottest June on record, more than 3 C hotter than the 1991-2020 average.

Copernicus' strategic lead for climate change Samantha Burgess emphasized that rising air and ocean temperatures will continue to create trapped "heat domes," resulting in longer, more intense, and more deadly heat waves.

Scientists have said that last month's record heat would have been "virtually impossible" without human-induced climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Europe's heat wave: The worst is yet to come

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Edited by: Natalie Muller