The number of people who succumbed to the two heat waves of June and July will be known at the beginning of September. A necessary delay due to the proximity of these two heat waves.
The number of deaths attributable to two extreme heat waves which hit France at the end of June and the end of July will be known at the beginning of September. The Directorate General of Health (DGS), which depends on the Ministry of Health, confirmed this to AFP on Thursday August 8.
A heavy toll expected
Initially, the assessments of these two heat waves would have been published in two stages: first those of the June heat wave announced at the beginning of August, then those of July at the end of the month or at the beginning of September.
But, “due to the proximity of these two major episodes of heat wave at the end of June and the end of July, a single report will be published by (the health agency) Santé Publique France, at the beginning of September”, explained the DGS at AFP.
This delay of about a month to draw up an assessment of the victims of the heat wave is normal: it makes it possible to ensure that the additional deaths observed over the period are indeed due to the heat wave.
Temperature records
Observed in the northern part of France from July 23 to 25, the 2nd heat wave saw new heat records exceeded in around fifty cities. It was 42.6°C in Paris, 40.1°C in Rennes, 42.1°C in Brive and 41.5°C in Lille, where the last record dated from July 2018 with 37.5°C . That is an increase of 4°C.
The two heat waves of 2019, exceptional in their precocity and intensity, were reminiscent of that of the summer of 2003. Between August 4 and August 18, 2003, 19,490 people died due to these oppressive heat, especially older people. In total, the 2003 heat wave killed 70,000 people in Europe.
The year 2018, the hottest so far recorded in metropolitan France, was also hit by a heat wave at the end of July / beginning of August. This had caused about 1,500 more deaths than a “normal” summer.
June 2019 has become the hottest month of June ever observed in Europe, since satellite observations began in 1979.
.
