Germany reports record 15,800 heat-related deaths this summer

Germany has registered a record 15,800 heat-related deaths this summer as Europe struggles through a series of punishing heatwaves, the national public health institute said Thursday.

The worst affected group were people over 75, and around 9,600 deaths were recorded in one week in late June when Germany baked in temperatures over 40C, said the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

Another 4,000 heat-related deaths were recorded between late July and mid-August, said the institute in its latest update.

Heat and drought have battered much of Europe this summer, fuelling a spike in heat-related mortality, wildfires, devastating many crops and dropping water levels in major rivers. France, Britain and Spain have all reported thousands of excess summer deaths.

The institute said it has collected heat mortality data for the past decade and that the previous record was 8,900 deaths in 2018. A separate report by a medical publication had estimated 10,000 heat deaths in 1994.

Extreme heat can kill through heatstroke but mostly proves fatal when combined with existing conditions such as cardiovascular, lung or kidney diseases.

The RKI models heat-related mortality using statistical methods that compare deaths during summer weeks with and without heatwaves.

Climate change and heat adaptation were on the agenda of a two-day cabinet retreat this week led by conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, but no new measures were announced.

Merz said Germany's 16 states are primarily responsible for heat protection and are already set to receive 100 billion euros ($116 billion) over the next 12 years from a special infrastructure and climate protection fund.

"There is no shortage of programmes or of funds," Merz said Wednesday, adding that the government would examine potential aid for the agricultural and forestry sectors after drought and forest fires.

The parliamentary chief of Merz's CDU party, Thorsten Frei, meanwhile rejected a proposal by centre-left SPD ministers to anchor climate protection in the German constitution as a joint task of national, state and local governments.

This model would carry the risk "that one level of government points the finger at another, and ultimately little gets done," he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

The group Environmental Action Germany charged the government was "irresponsible" because it had "failed to adopt a single effective measure for heat protection following an extreme summer that saw thousands of heat-related deaths".

It urged legal changes and funding to help municipalities and cities unseal paved surfaces that store heat and to plant vastly more trees.

"Future summers will be even hotter," said the group's director Barbara Metz. "Yet instead of finally ensuring our cities remain livable and people stay healthy, the government is merely tinkering with the symptoms."