The heat is suffocating central Europe, exacerbating the death toll and closing schools

Europeans, especially in Germany, Poland, Czechia and Hungary, faced a new day of stifling heat on Sunday, as the hot air mass headed eastward, away from France, while the World Health Organization announced the death of more than 1,300 people as a result of the heat wave.

The Director-General of the Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a post on the X platform, “More than 1,300 additional deaths have been recorded since June 21 due to rising temperatures in Europe.” He added, “One million people are currently living in extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools have been closed, and electricity networks are under severe pressure.”

According to analysis by Agence France-Presse, at least 191 million people were affected by temperatures higher than 35 degrees Celsius at some point on Sunday, with the heat particularly intense in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

The World Weather Tribunal team of scientists said that this heat wave is the most intense ever recorded in Europe, and it would have been “practically impossible” for it to occur in June if it were not for climate change.

Unprecedented record temperatures were recorded in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, and June records were broken in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Poland recorded a new record of 40.5 degrees Celsius in the city of Slobice in the west of the country, according to the National Meteorological Institute.

Germany also witnessed a new record with the temperature reaching 41.7 degrees Celsius in Cochin, near the Polish border, while the Czech Republic also broke records for the second day in a row, recording 41.9 degrees Celsius in Duksany, north of Prague.

In Berlin, police used water cannons again to help reduce the severity of the heat.

In France, no province is subject to the red alert, according to what the Meteorological Service announced on Sunday, with 39 provinces placed under orange alert, including 19 provinces due to storm risks.

The French authorities began counting additional deaths that could be attributed to the historic heat that has been suffocating the country for 11 days. The number of deaths was recorded at about a thousand more than the usual level since the twenty-fourth of June, when the temperature began to exceed forty degrees Celsius.

The Public Health Agency in France indicated that this phenomenon particularly affected those over the age of sixty-five (85 percent of cases), noting that deaths at home recorded the highest increase of approximately 40 percent, especially in the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris and its suburbs.

She added that a large number of these deaths are of people over 65 years old.

‘Heavy toll’

Philippe Govin, head of the emergency department at the Pompidou Hospital in France, one of the largest hospital institutions in Paris, revealed that he expects “a very, very heavy toll, probably.”

He said in statements to France Info, “Tomorrow morning, domestic workers and helpers for the elderly in their homes will return to work and open the doors of the homes, where they will find people in very bad conditions, others who did not drink enough water, others suffering from the heat, and others who have died.”

In statements to BFMTV, Health Minister Stephanie Rest suggested that “the additional deaths will likely not be the same” as those recorded in 2003, when the deaths of 15,000 people were counted.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez rejected the criticism directed at him regarding the response, saying, “This is not a failure. We were prepared.”

Frequent heat waves are an unambiguous indicator of climate change caused, in particular, by the burning of fossil fuels.

Heatwaves may be exacerbated by a “cold mass” from the Atlantic, where waters are abnormally cold in southern Iceland and Greenland.

Studies indicate the possibility that this mass will change the path of the jet stream in the atmosphere that crosses Europe from west to east. These changes may lead to the formation of pressure ridges over the continent, as is the case with the “heat dome” currently.

As a result of these events, “the temperature in Europe increases at a faster rate in the summer than in other regions of the world,” according to Marilena Oltmans, a physicist specializing in the ocean and climate and a lecturer at the University of Bremen in Germany.

“People turn a blind eye”

Warming also affects the seas, causing a decrease in their biodiversity. Gregory Beaugrain, director of research at the National Institute for Scientific Research, has noticed that the organisms he collects samples from on a beach in northern France have become smaller in size.

When the composition of plankton changes, “all levels” of the food chain change in turn, according to the scientist, who indicated in his statements to Agence France-Presse that “fish that love cold water are becoming extinct.”

In an interview with the weekly “La Tribune Dimanche”, French climate scientist Jean Guzel, vice president of the United Nations climate body, expressed fears that political officials would move “to other issues” as the heat wave subsides.

He stressed, “The UN Climate Panel did not exaggerate. What we are experiencing today is what we expected fifty years ago. Therefore, citizens must take what scientists say seriously. People turn a blind eye, but the matter is very dangerous.”