The extreme heat last summer has claimed the lives of more than 50,000 people in Europe, according to a new study.
The data was revealed on Friday by two studies from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, published in the journal Nature Health. Two-thirds of the deaths were attributable to human-induced climate change.
The scientists examined 854 urban areas across the 27 EU Member States, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. These areas are home to around 40% of the population of the 30 countries.
The research shows that 50,391 people died as a result of the extreme heat during the summer. This means the death toll is higher than in previous hot summers, such as those of 2022 (29,000 additional heat-related deaths) and 2003 (28,000 additional heat-related deaths), and twice as high as in the summer of 2025 (24,572 additional heat-related deaths).
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Furthermore, it is also becoming increasingly clear that climate change is having a growing impact. At the start of the century, 40% of heat-related deaths were attributed to human-induced climate change; now that figure stands at two-thirds.
According to the researchers, this amounts to 693 heat-related deaths in Belgium, 58% of which are attributable to climate change.
