Overview
- Summer 2024 accounted for an estimated 62,775 deaths between June 1 and September 30, up 23.6% from 2023 and slightly below the 2022 peak.
- In 2024, women’s heat-attributable mortality was about 46–47% higher than men’s, and people aged 75 and older faced more than triple the risk.
- Italy had the highest death toll in 2024 (about 19,038), followed by Spain (6,743), Germany (6,282), Greece (5,980) and Romania (4,943).
- Per capita impacts were greatest in Greece and Bulgaria, while within Spain the Community of Madrid recorded the most deaths with 1,086 (158 per million).
- The Nature Medicine analysis of 654 regions in 32 countries links concentrated risk to the Mediterranean and southeast as Europe warms roughly twice as fast as the global average, prompting calls for targeted early warnings, urban cooling and social protections.