2026-05-09 · percent of weather-related deaths (EU estimate)
Heat kills more than storms in many years
Extreme heat is the quiet disaster — elderly and outdoor workers bear the risk.
Extreme heat is the quiet disaster. In the EU, an estimated 85% of weather-related deaths come from heat and cold extremes — storms and floods account for just 15%. The burden falls hardest on the elderly and outdoor workers, and because most heat deaths surface as cardiovascular disease, official tallies capture only a fraction of the real toll.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of weather-related deaths (EU estimate) (0.1% of weather mortality) · 1,000 cells
Context
Temperature deaths are among the least complete records in global disaster data. Including extreme temperature events can add 50,000 to 60,000 deaths to annual disaster totals in some years, and over half of heat events in EM-DAT were reported from just nine countries — Japan, India, Pakistan, the United States, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany — while sub-Saharan Africa is almost completely overlooked.
Globally, disasters kill roughly 10,000 to 20,000 people per year in most recent years — a figure that excludes temperature deaths. Death rates from disasters have fallen by more than 90% over the last century thanks to forecasting, early warning systems, and better infrastructure — yet heat remains the hazard that slips past both the warnings and the record books.
This 2026 edition pairs WHO and EM-DAT data with an EU estimate of weather-related mortality. Because indirect heat deaths are only estimated after the fact using statistical methods, researchers advise caution with heat figures — recorded shares likely understate the full toll.
WHO / EM-DAT: temperature extremes dominate mortality in many regions.
Share and export
Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-05-09-heat-deaths-climate