Heat Killed More Than 50,000 People in Europe This Summer, the Deadliest Toll on Record

More than 50,000 people died from heat in Europe's cities this summer, the highest toll researchers have recorded for the continent, a study published on Friday, October 23 in Nature Health found. Researchers at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modelled heat related deaths in 854 cities during June, July and August. They put the total at 50,391. Of those deaths, 32,619 were attributed to the extra heat caused by human caused climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas.

A toll above the worst summers before it

The 2026 figure is 71 percent higher than the 29,480 deaths recorded for 2022, until now the deadliest in records running back to 2000, and it stands well above the levels estimated for 2003. The 854 cities sit in 30 countries, the 27 members of the European Union plus the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland, and hold about 173 million people, roughly 40 percent of the population of those countries. The count leaves out a deadly heatwave in May and every town and rural area, so the full European toll is likely higher. National health authorities counted more than 8,000 heat related deaths in France and more than 16,000 in Germany over the summer.

Two weeks did much of the damage

About a third of the deaths fell in a single spell from June 17 to July 1, when temperatures ran 5.3 degrees Celsius (9.5 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal. Some cities recorded days more than 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than usual. Western Europe had its hottest summer on record, at 2.9 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average. Europe is the fastest warming continent and now sits about 2.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures. Italy, France, Spain and Germany recorded the highest national tolls.

Older people bore the brunt

People aged 85 and over made up the largest share of the deaths, and those aged 75 and over accounted for nearly three quarters, according to the modelling reported with the study. Working age adults were not spared. The researchers put deaths among people aged 20 to 64 at about 6,000, including more than 800 people aged 20 to 44. Lead author Clair Barnes, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, said much of western and northern Europe has buildings and infrastructure that were not designed for the temperatures the region now sees.

A modelled count, checked against official figures

Heat deaths are rarely written on death certificates, so the team estimated them by combining temperature records with established links between heat and daily mortality for each city and age group, then comparing this summer with a modelled world without human caused warming. The share of heat deaths blamed on climate change has risen from about 40 percent at the start of the century to about 65 percent now. For the May and June heatwaves in Britain, the model produced 2,700 excess deaths, close to the 2,800 reported by the UK Health Security Agency. Lasse Vestergaard of the European Mortality Monitoring Network urged caution over the uncertainties in any model, while adding that the estimates were broadly in line with what his network reported over the summer. Barnes said 2026 was likely the worst summer on record for heat deaths across much of Europe, and warned that without faster cuts in fossil fuel use, summers will keep getting more dangerous. The findings land weeks before world leaders gather in Turkey for the annual United Nations climate talks.