55 people have drowned since the heatwave gripped France, according to Sports Minister Marina Ferrari. The majority of the drownings have occurred in “unauthorized or unsupervised areas.”
"We fear that the situation could worsen," she tells Franceinfo, calling the death toll "dramatic."
Overburdened hospitals are struggling with a surge of patients suffering from heat-related illnesses. Staffing levels would need to be doubled during heatwaves like the current one, says emergency physician and member of parliament Philippe Juvin, head of the emergency department at the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris.
“Died completely alone”
The corridors are full of mostly elderly patients," he tells BFMTV, but at the same time he warns that not everyone will even manage to get to the hospital:
In the coming days, we will find people who have died completely alone in their homes.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is appealing to the French to take “individual responsibility” and stop exercising in the heat - and to show solidarity with their fellow humans.
"Call an elderly relative, reach out to an isolated neighbor, follow a frail loved one to a cool place," he writes on X.
Heat record
On Friday, at least 150 million Europeans will endure temperatures above 35 degrees, according to an analysis by the AFP news agency.
Both in Switzerland and the UK - where London's ambulance service noted a "historic number of life-threatening emergencies" on Wednesday - heat records for the month of June have been shattered.
In Spain, more than 200 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday have been linked to the extreme heat, writes the Spanish news agency EFE.
