According to AFP, Germany recorded about 14,000 deaths related to heatstroke this summer, as Europe struggles with a series of severe heat waves. This number is higher than the record level recorded in 2018, according to newly released official figures.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, about 9,600 of these cases occurred in just one week at the end of June, when Germany experienced temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. This public health agency said that people over 75 years old accounted for the highest mortality rate.
In some cases, heat exposure directly leads to death, while in most cases, death is the result of a combination of heat exposure and existing underlying conditions," the Robert Koch Institute report stated.
Therefore, hot weather is often not recorded as the cause of death on death certificates; instead, statistical methods must be used to estimate the scale of deaths related to hot weather," the document said.
Looking back at recent years, the Robert Koch Institute recorded 8,900 deaths related to heat in Germany in 2018, while this number decreased to 2,000 or fewer in other years, such as 2016.
These differences can be explained by the different severity of heat waves," the report noted.
