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Madrid. It has been revealed in a study that during the hottest summer in Europe last year, about 62,000( 62000) people died due to heat. It is heart-wrenching evidence that heat is a silent killer and its victims are few. The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, found that between May 30 and September 4 last year, 61,672 people lost their lives to heat-related illness in Europe.
Italy was the most affected country with nearly 18,000 deaths, followed by Spain with over 11,000 and Germany with nearly 8,000. The researchers also found that the deadly heat disproportionately harmed the elderly and women. Of the nearly 62,000 deaths analyzed, heat-related mortality was 63% higher among women than among men. Age was also an important factor, with a significant increase in the death rate for people 65 and older.
‘It’s a huge number,’ Joan Ballester, epidemiologist at ISGlobal and lead author of the study, told CNN. Eurostat, Europe’s statistical office, set out to determine the number of heat wave deaths last year. tried. But Ballester, who lives in Spain, which battled last year’s heat wave, said the study published Monday was the first to analyze how many deaths last summer were caused specifically by the heat.
The researchers analyzed temperature and mortality data from 35 European countries between 2015 and 2022 – representing a total population of 540 million people – and used this to build an epidemiological model to calculate heat-related deaths. Did. He said, ‘For me, I am an epidemiologist, so I know what to expect and (the number of deaths) is not surprising, but for the general population, it is very likely that it will be quite surprising. Is.’
