Spain's deadliest summer since 2015... more than 5,000 deaths due to heat

Spain’s sweltering summer has become the deadliest since record-keeping began more than a decade ago, with heat-related deaths surpassing 5,000 in the last three months.

Spain’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday that 5,109 people died from causes linked to extreme heat during June, July, and August, marking the highest toll recorded in the country since monitoring of such data began in 2015.

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In a statement, the ministry’s daily mortality monitoring system, “MOMO,” said that individuals aged 85 and older accounted for 62% of total deaths, while women represented 60% of the fatalities.

It noted that June saw 937 heat-related deaths, before the toll rose to 2,025 in July, coinciding with record-breaking temperatures—the highest ever recorded in the country since records began.

It added that August, which recorded the second-highest temperatures since historical records began, saw 2,147 heat-related deaths.

The death toll for the summer of 2026 has so far surpassed those recorded in the summers of 2022, 2023, and 2025, which totaled 4,789, 3,035, and 3,651 heat-related deaths, respectively. The summer of 2024 recorded approximately 1,977 deaths.

Despite recording the highest toll since the current monitoring system was launched in 2015, the number of deaths remains significantly lower than that of the summer of 2003, when heat-related deaths were estimated at around 13,000.