Thousands of Europeans Are Dying in the Summer Heat Without AC

Thousands of Europeans have died this summer after contracting heat-related illnesses, as a brutal heat wave endures across Europe. 

Preliminary data from Spain, Italy, and Germany show that more than 5,600 people have died so far this season, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The numbers are still being tracked because summer is not yet over — and neither is the heat wave that’s engulfing the continent. 

Last year, heat waves across Europe killed 61,700 people, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature. That’s compared to about an average of 1,370 people in the United States who died every year from 2008 to 2017 due to extreme heat, according to research published in JAMA Network Open.

One reason Europeans are particularly susceptible to heat-related death is that temperatures in Europe are climbing at a faster rate than they are on Earth overall, according to data from the World Meteorological Organization. 

Another reason is that, for a long time, European households have seldom had air conditioning units installed. Europeans have in large part always viewed air conditioning units as an American indulgence, but the installation of air conditioning is spreading across the continent. 

Spain has so far tallied 2,800 people who died from June through August of this year because of heat-related causes, the Journal reported. In Germany, there have been 2,400 heat-related deaths so far this year. 

And in Italy, scientists determined that deaths of people over 65 have increased by 9% in July compared to seasonal averages. Requests for Italian emergency medical services jumped 20% this year compared with the same time last year because of the scorching heat, according to Mario Balzanelli, president of Italy’s emergency service association.

“We witnessed many cardiac arrests on the beach and people collapsing while cycling or doing physical exercise,” Balzanelli told the Journal. “We found old people who died while they were walking to the supermarket.”