The figure that epidemiologists have settled on is that at least 1,147 people in the UK died from extreme heatwaves. The UK saw its hottest summer on record this year, with experts saying extreme heat incidents were made more likely and intense by human-induced global warming.
A study led by researchers at Imperial College London, released on Wednesday, used modelling, historical mortality records and peer-reviewed methods to provide early estimates of fatalities this summer.
The heat was responsible for 68 per cent of the 24,400 total heat deaths in 854 European cities or areas over the three months, according to its analysis.
This amounts to an additional 16,500 lives lost, compared with what may have been seen during a summer not heated by human activities – including 835 deaths in Rome, 630 in Athens, 409 in Paris and 387 in Madrid, it found.
For the UK, there were 315 deaths in London, 52 in Birmingham, 24 in Glasgow and Sheffield 22 in Edinburgh and 14 each in Belfast, Leeds, Wolverhampton and Dundee, according to the analysis.
