Extreme heat was associated with more than 35,000 deaths in Europe in the last year.

Omissions

• The 35,000 figure found in the sources refers to excess deaths during Europe's summer 2026 heatwaves (reported August 2026), described as an 'at least' floor estimate, not to a full calendar-year 2025 total as the phrase 'in the last year' suggests.
• At least one report notes the 35,000 excess deaths were recorded across 'barely half the continent', so geographic coverage is partial rather than all of Europe.
• Other widely cited estimates give substantially different magnitudes for different periods/metrics: 62,700 heat-related deaths in summer 2024 (ISGlobal/Nature Medicine); ~16,500 climate-change-attributable deaths in summer 2025 across 854 cities (LSHTM); and about 175,000 heat-related deaths per year in Europe (UN/WMO), showing the figure depends heavily on the year and the metric chosen.
• The supporting sources are news outlets (Guardian, China Daily and others) that appear to draw on the same underlying study/press release, so they are not fully independent corroboration, and no primary/official statistical source publishing the exact figure was located.

Sources

• PrimaryClimate-ADAPT (European Environment Agency)In 2023, just under 48,000 heat-related deaths were estimated across Europe (Gallo et al., 2024).
• AcademicLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)Climate change intensified Europe's summer heat in 2025 and drove an estimated 16,500 additional deaths across 854 cities, according to a new [study].
• SecondaryThe GuardianAt least 35,000 more people died during Europe's four record-breaking, back-to-back heatwaves this summer than would normally be expected.
• SecondaryChina DailyOf the 35,000 excess deaths recorded so far in Europe, 10,650 occurred during a heat wave between June 22 and June 28, with 9,000 of those [in one country].