A record heatwave that has gripped much of Europe could be linked to 212 deaths in Spain between Sunday and Wednesday, according to estimates from a public institute.

The MoMo monitoring system compiles daily death statistics in Spain and compares them with the levels foreseeable based on historical records.

It also incorporates external factors, such as weather data from the national weather agency Aemet, to assess likely causes of mortality spikes.

Its data registered an excess mortality of 98 deaths for the same four days of 2025, during what was the hottest summer on record in a country on the front line of climate change.

The number of heat-related deaths in Spain between May 16 and September 30 last year hit 3,832, an 87.6-percent increase from the same period in 2024, according to MoMo data.

Mainland Spain this week recorded its highest daily average temperatures in June since at least 1950, with Monday's figure of 28.08 degrees Celsius followed by 28.17 degrees on Tuesday.

Those two days also marked the highest average minimum temperatures for June since 1950, with 20.14 degrees recorded on Monday and 19.81 degrees on Tuesday. These so-called "tropical nights" make sleep challenging and can threaten public health.

The weather sparked the highest alert in parts of northern Spain including Cantabria and the Basque Country, which are usually spared the harshest heat but where temperatures soared past 40 degrees.

Most weather alerts had been lifted on Thursday, with the lowest yellow level in force in the north.

The Spanish deaths came as a three-year-old was found dead in a car in the Paris region, a police source said on Thursday, the third such fatality of a child during the extreme weather this week.

Parents found the boy in "the car outside their home", the source said. Civil defence confirmed his death in the town of Saint-Gratien in the Paris suburbs.

France on Wednesday recorded the hottest day since measurements began in 1947, the national average temperature reaching 30 degrees.

Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said on Thursday deaths were on the rise in the capital but did not give a specific figure.

Temperatures in the capital reached 40.3 degrees on Wednesday, topping the 40-degree mark for the fourth time in 150 years. (AFP)



Edited by Thomas McAlinden