Nearly 10,000 Germans have died from the heat this year

 

TT

 

Published 16:50

  

High temperatures have prompted many Germans to seek cooler places, like here in Munich at the end of June. Photo: Peter Kneffel/AP/TT

So far this year, almost 10,000 people have died from heat-related causes in Germany. That's more than the full-year figures for any single year in the past decade.

Heat waves and a society that is not fully prepared for the heat had claimed 9,800 lives in Germany by mid-July, reports the German DPA.

Most of those affected are elderly, over 85, with underlying lung and kidney diseases, according to the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.

More than half of the deaths occurred in the second half of June, when just over 5,000 people died, and between July 13 and 19 alone, the heat is estimated to have caused the deaths of 1,900 people.

In 2018, around 9,000 people in Germany died from heat-related causes, the highest number in the last ten years.