Madrid.- The third heatwave of this summer in Spain, which began this Tuesday and ended on Thursday, caused 151 deaths attributable to causes related to high temperatures, bringing the total number of deaths linked to excess temperature to 2,680 since May 15, when the Ministry of Health activated the heat plan for the summer period.
According to estimates from the Spanish Daily Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo), a total of 151 deaths attributable to these causes have occurred in Spain during the third heatwave, although the data are preliminary and it will be necessary to wait a week for them to be more stable.
You might be interested in: Kazakhstan records historic heatwave with temperatures of up to 48°C
This figure is lower than the deaths from the previous two heatwaves: in the first heatwave, from June 21 to 25, 333 deaths were recorded, and in the second, which took place from July 5 to 9, there were 454.
The MoMo system, developed by the Daily Mortality Surveillance Unit of the National Center for Epidemiology (CNE), which belongs to the Carlos III Health Institute, is not a registry of actual deaths, but rather makes a statistical projection by cross-referencing temperatures and observed daily mortality with that expected for that period of time (‘excess mortality’).
The highest ‘excess mortality’ of this third heatwave, which mainly affects the most vulnerable, aggravating previous pathologies, occurred on July 23, when 61 deaths were recorded, in contrast to the previous day, in which there were 47 deaths, and the first day, which left 43 deaths.
More Read
The third and final day of the third heatwave of the Spanish summer has left very high temperatures, which led to the activation of a red warning (extraordinary danger) in the Region of Murcia and the Valencian Community (eastern Spain), where temperatures reached 44 degrees Celsius in some areas.
