Ninety-One

Between June 15 and July 19, five weeks of heat, 91 additional deaths were recorded in Luxembourg. Most were elderly. Those over 85 accounted for 55 of them.

This is not a projection or a model. It is a count. The Ministry of Health recorded these deaths against expected baselines. The heat killed, or contributed to killing, 91 people in a country of fewer than 700'000. That is roughly one excess death every twelve hours for five straight weeks.

Luxembourg was not alone. During the week of June 22 to 28, when the heatwave peaked across the continent, national statistics institutes in Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Luxembourg registered around 10'000 excess deaths combined. The European Mortality Monitoring project, EuroMOMO, which compiles data from 24 countries representing roughly 400 million people, recorded 14'260 excess deaths across participating countries that same week. Luxembourg alone counted 26.

Looking back over the past seven years, only one other summer week has seen a higher death toll: July 2022. That was a summer when Covid-19 was still circulating. This time, there is no pandemic to blame. Lasse Vestergaard, an epidemiologist at Denmark's Statens Serum Institut and EuroMOMO coordinator, said there is no other cause for this excess mortality than the heat. He called it quite dramatic.

The national breakdowns are grim. Germany recorded nearly 12'000 heat-related deaths according to the Robert Koch Institute. Belgium saw 39% excess mortality, 1'222 additional deaths, between June 18 and 29. France reported 5'764 excess deaths between June 17 and July 2, the highest summer mortality since the 2003 heatwave that killed tens of thousands across Europe. Most victims were elderly, but in France, some younger people were also among the dead.

Hans Henri Kluge, the WHO Regional Director for Europe, warned on Thursday that the summer is not over yet. The WHO and the Copernicus climate programme both say that without radical changes to urban planning, including extensive greening of cities, the death toll will keep rising exponentially.

The numbers for Luxembourg are small compared to Germany or France. They are not small when you consider the size of the country. Ninety-one people, in five weeks, in a place where everyone knows someone who knows someone. Fifty-five of them were over 85. People who survived wars, recessions, and a pandemic, taken by the heat.

The heatwave is not a surprise anymore. It is the fifth in a series this summer. The drought is ongoing. The reservoir is crowded. The parks are being watered selectively. And in homes and care facilities across the country, the heat did what it does: it found the people who could not get away from it.

Ninety-one is the number for five weeks. The summer is not over.