Heat alerts spread across Europe as Spain sets June records

Europe entered another day of dangerous heat on Thursday, with more than 100 million people expected to see temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius. The conditions have triggered health alerts, power disruptions and fresh concern over deaths possibly tied to the heat.

AFP calculated that at least 101 million people would face temperatures above 35C, including about 50 million in France and 18 million in Germany. The news agency said maximum temperatures were expected to exceed 30C for more than 380 million people across Europe, or nearly two-thirds of the continent’s population.

AFP said that wider estimate was based on forecasts from Germany’s weather service and 2025 population projections from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. The figures broadly match projections from the Austrian nonprofit Klimadashboard, according to AFP, and are higher than Wednesday’s estimate from the German weather service of 94 million people exposed to temperatures above 35C.

France under red heat alert

France faces some of the heaviest exposure. About 63 million people in mainland France were expected to experience temperatures above 30C, according to AFP.

The French weather agency placed three-quarters of the country under a red alert for extreme heat from midday Thursday until midday Friday. In northwest France’s Brittany region, Al Jazeera and AFP reported that a heat-related equipment failure cut power to tens of thousands of households, leaving residents without electric fans during the hot spell.

In the Paris suburbs, a three-year-old boy was found dead in a car, police said. Police said his parents found him in the vehicle outside their home, and civil defence officials confirmed the death in Saint-Gratien. Al Jazeera and AFP reported it was the third death of a child in a car in the region this week.

Germany, Italy and Britain are also facing broad exposure to heat above 30C. AFP said that threshold would affect about 70 million people in Germany, 48 million in Italy and 38 million in Britain.

Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are also affected, according to AFP, as are parts of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Croatia. The heatwave has gripped much of Western Europe since last weekend, Al Jazeera and AFP reported.

Spain reports possible heat-linked deaths

In Spain, a public institute estimated that the heatwave could be linked to 212 deaths between Sunday and Wednesday. The estimate came from MoMo, a monitoring system that compares daily mortality figures with expected levels based on historical records.

MoMo also factors in outside conditions, including weather data from Spain’s national weather agency AEMET, to assess likely reasons for mortality spikes. The system recorded 98 excess deaths during the same four-day period in 2025, according to its data.

MoMo data showed that heat-related deaths in Spain between May 16 and September 30 last year reached 3,832, an 87.6 percent increase from the same period in 2024. Spain is among the European countries most exposed to climate change, according to Al Jazeera and AFP.

Mainland Spain recorded its highest June daily average temperatures since at least 1950 this week, according to Al Jazeera and AFP. The average reached 28.08C on Monday and 28.17C on Tuesday.

Those two days also set June records for average minimum temperatures since 1950, with 20.14C on Monday and 19.81C on Tuesday, according to the report. Such hot nights can make sleep harder and increase health risks.

The heat prompted the highest alert in parts of northern Spain, including Cantabria and the Basque Country, areas that are often spared Spain’s most intense heat. Temperatures there rose above 40C, while most weather alerts had been lifted by Thursday, leaving the lowest yellow alert in force in the north.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.