The heat caused 2,124 deaths in Spain during the month of July, the highest figure in at least seven years, according to an estimate by the Carlos III Health Institute released on Monday.
This public health research institute, supervised by the Spanish government, constantly monitors excess mortality in Spain, estimating deaths attributable to high temperatures, a system known as Momo.
For the month of July 2002, the institute estimates an excess mortality of 2,124 deaths attributable to high temperatures and this is the highest number recorded in the available database of the Momo system, which runs until January 2015.
Until now, the highest figure dates back to precisely 2015 and also to the month of July, when 1,797 deaths were attributed to heat that month.
In July 2019, deaths attributed to heat in Spain once again exceeded one thousand (1,087).
Last year, in July, 568 deaths in Spain were attributed to heat.
Since mid-June, Spain has experienced successive periods of extreme temperatures and at least two heat waves.
The month of August began this Monday with new rises in temperatures that, according to the Spanish authorities, will reach maximum values of between 5 and 10 degrees higher than those considered normal during the week.
It is possible that from Sunday, July 31 to at least Wednesday, August 3 and Thursday, August 4, the necessary levels of intensity, persistence and extension will be reached to be able to classify this episode of high temperatures as a heat wave, which would be the third this summer”, said the spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), Rubén del Campo, quoted by the EFE agency.
On Sunday the maximum temperatures already exceeded 40 degrees in several regions of Spain, especially in the interior and south of the country, where during the early hours the minimums remained close to 30 degrees.
The heat of June and July also triggered a wave of fires in Spain that caused the largest area burned within the European Union in 2022 and the largest fire in the country since records began, according to provisional data.
It already burned this year in Spain 222,800 hectares, which corresponds to 38.5% of the total area burned this year by fires within the European Union (578,956 hectares), according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), which relies on satellite images to make estimates.
The biggest fires this year in Spain have occurred in the region of Castilla y León, which borders Portugal in the districts of Bragança and Guarda.
If the provisional calculations of the Junta de Castilla y León are confirmed, also based on satellite images of the European Copernicus system (the same ones used by EFFIS), Spain was facing this July, in the province of Zamora, the largest fire record in the history of the country, which burned 36,000 hectares and in which two people died.
Spanish national records, dating back to 1968, say that the worst year for fires in Spain was 1985, when 484,475 hectares burned.
Source: Observadora
