🔶 Heat wave in Germany has claimed 11,900 victims this year

According to estimates by Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI), following a very hot week in late June, the number of people who have died due to heat is far higher than previously imagined. In the institute’s most recent weekly report on heat-related deaths, it said that about 9,600 of the deaths occurred in the period from week 22 to 28 in June. As such, most of this year’s deaths are related to days with exceptionally high temperatures, when the air temperature in many parts of Germany reached around 40 degrees Celsius. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the total number of heat-related fatalities this year has increased to an estimated 11,900 people.

On that basis, the number of people who have died this year due to heat has exceeded the total annual figures for each of the years since 2016. The highest number of heat victims previously was in 2018, with about 9,000 deaths across the entire year.