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       MADRID: High temperatures caused 1,180 deaths in Spain in the past two months, a sharp increase from the same period last year, the Environment Ministry said on Monday.

       The vast majority of people who died were over 65 and more than half were women, the data it cited showed. The most affected regions were Galicia, La Rioja, Asturias and Cantabria — all located in the northern half of the country, where traditionally cooler summer temperatures have seen a significant rise in recent years.

       Like other countries in Western Europe, Spain has been hit by extreme heat in recent weeks, with temperatures often topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

       The 1,180 people who died of heat-related causes between May 16 and July 13 compared with 114 in the same period in 2024, the ministry said in a statement citing data from the Carlos III Health Institute. The number of deaths increased significantly in the first week in July.

       The data shows an event “of exceptional intensity, characterized by an unprecedented increase in average temperatures and a significant increase in mortality attributable to heatwaves”, the ministry said. In the period the data covers, there were 76 red alerts for extreme heat, compared with none a year earlier.

       Last summer, 2,191 deaths were attributed to heat-related causes in Spain, according to data from the Carlos III Health Institute. The data from Spain follows a rapid scientific analysis published on July 9 that said around 2,300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities during a severe heatwave in the 10 days to July 2.

       It was not immediately clear whether the study conducted by scientists at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was using the same methodology as the Spanish data.

       UK weather records

       Extremes in temperature and rainfall in the UK are becoming increasingly frequent, the nation’s meteorological service said on Monday in a report on Britain’s changing climate. England and Wales endured the wettest winter in 250 years in from from October 2023 to March 2024, with six of the 10 wettest winters occurring in the 21st century. The report also found that last year was the UK’s fourth warmest since 1884 with the last three years all in the top five warmest on record.

       Records were now being broken “very frequently”, said Mike Kendon, Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate report.

       “It’s the extremes of temperature and rainfall that is changing the most, and that’s of profound concern, and that’s going to continue in the future,” he said.

       Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the findings showed Britain’s way of life was “under threat”. “Whether it is extreme heat, droughts, flooding, we can see it actually with our own eyes, that it’s already happening, and we need to act,” he said.

       In 2024, experts recorded the warmest spring, the second warmest February and the fifth warmest winter on record. Rising sea levels surrounding the UK were speeding up, with two-thirds of the rise recorded since 1900 taking place in the last 30 years, the report said.

       Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2025