142,000 European Deaths from Extreme Weather in the Past 40 Years

In the past forty years, 142,000 Europeans have died due to extreme weather, such as heatwaves and floods. The European Environment Agency EEA reported in a new report on Thursday that heatwaves, in particular, caused many deaths.

All in all, extreme weather has cost Europe nearly €510 billion over the past four decades.

The heatwave in the summer of 2003 took the lives of about 80,000 inhabitants of Europe. Since then, similar heatwaves have “caused significantly fewer casualties”, as many countries have been better prepared, according to the report. For example, air conditioning was installed in more buildings.

Three percent of extreme weather events caused about 60 percent of all financial damage. Germany was the hardest hit with 42,000 deaths and 107 billion euros in damage, followed by France (26,700 deaths and 99 billion euros) and Italy (21,600 deaths and 90 billion euros).

Only 23 percent of all material damage was insured, although there are large differences between countries. Romania and Lithuania had the least insurance with one percent of the damage, while the Netherlands (55 percent) and Denmark (56 percent) were insured for a lot of material damage.

The Environment Agency did not include natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the report because they are not meteorological.