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June 2026 was Spain's deadliest month for heat in recorded history, with more than 1,000 lives lost
New figures confirm 1,028 heat-related deaths last month, the worst June on record, as Aemet declares it the second hottest June since 1961
The figures published this week make uncomfortable reading, particularly for anyone who lived through last month's heat. More than 1,000 people in Spain died as a result of extreme temperatures in June, the highest total ever recorded for that month since official monitoring began.According to the Daily Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo) of the Carlos III Health Institute, which tracks excess deaths by comparing observed mortality against expected figures for the period, 1,028 deaths were attributable to extreme heat last month. That makes it the sixth deadliest month for heat-related deaths since records began in 2015.
Health warnings had already been sounded back in May, when officials urged vulnerable groups to prepare for what was expected to be an intense summer. Those warnings proved well founded.
The death toll began climbing sharply on Monday June 22, when the first serious heatwave of the season took hold. That week alone accounted for 663 deaths, and in just the final two days of June a further 181 were added. The days of June 22 and 23 were later confirmed as the hottest June days recorded in Spain in at least 75 years.
Almería had already made history before that, recording the hottest June night ever experienced anywhere in Spain.
It was not only the daytime heat that proved lethal. Research published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change found that nighttime temperatures have been rising even faster than daytime ones globally, at 0.32 degrees per decade compared to 0.27 for daytime. Several consecutive nights of temperatures that refused to drop below 25 degrees Celsius added significantly to the physical toll on vulnerable people.
The profile of those who died is striking. More than 97% of deaths resulted from the worsening of pre-existing conditions rather than heatstroke directly, and 1,022 of the 1,028 victims were over 65, of whom 720 were over 85. Women were more affected than men, with 624 female deaths compared to 405 male.
The first heatwave of the season, which ran from June 22 to 25, alone caused 212 deaths in just four days, with Wednesday June 25 the single deadliest day at 95 deaths. There were also at least two confirmed direct heatstroke deaths: a 68-year-old man in Almería and a 42-year-old man in Badajoz.
It is also worth noting that May recorded 101 heat-related deaths, the highest figure ever for that month.
The previous worst June on record was 2017, when an estimated 1,000 people died. The average across the twelve years the system has been running is around 340 deaths per June, which puts this year's figure into sharp perspective.
Regionally, Catalonia recorded the most deaths at 218, followed by the Basque Country with 174, Castile and León with 96, the Community of Madrid with 92 and Galicia with 88. Andalucía recorded 72 deaths and the Valencian Community 62. Murcia recorded just three, and the Canary and Balearic Islands recorded none.
Spain is not alone in facing this crisis. The World Health Organization confirmed this week that more than 1,300 additional deaths were recorded across Europe since June 21, linked to the same heatwave that swept the continent.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was blunt about what is happening. "Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, at twice the global average," he said, adding that heat-related illness has become "a silent killer" in homes, workplaces and schools that were simply not built for these temperatures. Heatwaves that once occurred "once per generation," he warned, are now happening "almost once a year."
France, which bore much of the European death toll, has since announced a study trip to Spain to learn how Spanish society has adapted, with officials noting that "Madrid functions at 40 degrees" in a way that France has yet to achieve.
In Barcelona, the human cost has been building for years. Heat deaths in the city rose by 54% in 2025 alone, reaching 370 fatalities, the majority of them women and people over 75. The city's Health Councillor Marta Villanueva described heat as a growing structural challenge rather than an exceptional one. "Heat waves are, unfortunately, becoming less and less exceptional, and therefore the city is incorporating these measures as structural rather than exceptional," she said.
Barcelona has responded by expanding its network of climate shelters to around 500, adding nearly 100 new spaces this year, and distributing 1,400 heatstroke wristbands to municipal workers following the death of a 51-year-old cleaning worker during last year's heatwave. London and Paris, she noted, are now looking to Barcelona for guidance.
The meteorological backdrop to all of this is equally sobering. Aemet confirmed this week that June 2026 was the second warmest June in its historical series dating back to 1961, running 3.2 degrees above normal, surpassed only by June 2025. The first half of 2026 as a whole was the warmest January to June period on record, at 1.6 degrees above normal. All thirteen of the warmest Junes since 1961 have occurred in the 21st century.
"We were warned," said the WHO Director-General. It is difficult, looking at these figures, to disagree.
Images: Zaemon/Pexels
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