Graph: Heat-related mortality per million inhabitants in the summer of 2024 was largest in southern Europe (source: data in Janoš et al., 2025).

Between 30,000 and 90,000 deaths

Almost 63,000 heat-related deaths. That’s the death toll of Europe’s heat in the summer of 2024, according to recent estimates. This number is in line with the heat-related mortality burden during previous summers: 68,000 in 2022 and 51,000 in 2023. The uncertainty in these estimates is about 20,000 – 30,000, so the number of heat-related deaths in the last summers is somewhere between 30,000 and 90,000.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent, warming twice as fast as the global average. Southern Europe is a climate change hotspot, with the highest heat-related health impacts. In the summer of 2024, Europe experienced the highest seasonal temperatures, surpassing the previous record of 2022 by 0.20 °C.

Southern Europe

More than two-thirds of summer heat-related deaths occurred in southern Europe.

Heat-related mortality in 2024 was highest in Italy (19,038), as in the summers of 2022 and 2023. Italy was followed by Spain (6,743 deaths), Germany (6,282), Greece (5,980), Romania (4,943) and Bulgaria (3,414). The number of heat-related deaths per million inhabitants was highest in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia.

Higher for women and the elderly

Total heat-related mortality during all three summers and across Europe was about 40% higher for women than for men. Among people aged 75+ years, heat-related mortality was about 300% higher compared to people aged 0–74 years.

The estimated number of heat-related deaths is 5–20% higher than previous estimates. This is because daily regional time series of temperature observations and mortality records have been used. Previous studies are based on weekly data, underestimating heat-related mortality burden.

Source: Janoš et al., 2025. Nature Medicine.