150-M people face 35C

PARIS, France (AFP) — At least 150 million people in Europe are expected to experience temperatures above 35C on Friday, according to an Agence France-Presse analysis.

Germany is now expected to bear the brunt of the heatwave, with some 82 million people forecast to experience temperatures above 30C on Friday, including 52 million facing temperatures exceeding 35C.

Some 420 million people across Europe (excluding Turkey) — around 70 percent of the population — will swelter in temperatures of more than 30C, according to the analysis.

Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland have all broken temperature records during the heatwave, with the high temperatures now expected to affect large parts of Hungary, Belgium and Luxembourg, among others.

The analysis is based on forecasts from the German Meteorological Service and 2025 population projections from the Joint Research Centre and is in line with figures from Austrian non-government organization Klimadashboard.

The heatwave could be linked to 212 deaths in Spain between Sunday and Wednesday, according to estimates from a public institute.

The MoMo monitoring system compiles daily death statistics in Spain and compares them with the levels foreseeable based on historical records. It also incorporates external factors, such as weather data from the national weather agency AEMET, to assess likely causes of mortality spikes.

Its data registered an excess mortality of 98 deaths for the same four days of 2025, during what was the hottest summer on record in a country on the front line of climate change.

The number of heat-related deaths in Spain between 16 May and 30 September last year hit 3,832, an 87.6-percent increase from the same period in 2024, according to MoMo data.

Mainland Spain this week recorded its highest daily average temperatures in June since at least 1950, with Monday’s figure of 28.08C followed by 28.17C on Tuesday.

Those two days also marked the highest average minimum temperatures for June since 1950, with 20.14C recorded on Monday and 19.81C on Tuesday. These so-called “tropical nights” make sleep challenging and can threaten public health.