Europe’s record heat has overwhelmed Paris mortuaries and left families in distress

PARIS (AP) — The morgue owner’s phone rings every few minutes. since record-breaking heat wave As Paris and beyond begin to take over storage areas for lives and bodies, funeral directors and grieving families who call often ask the same question: Do you have room for one more?

With all 32 spots in his cold room occupied, Zouhaeir Hertelli reluctantly has to politely say “No” over and over again.

“We are facing a truly catastrophic situation,” he said. “I am receiving hundreds of calls.”

Aspect historic heat wave swiped deadly temperatures heading east this weekend Other parts of EuropeFrance has begun to take stock of the human cost it has left behind.

Counting heat-related deaths may take time

Statistical and public health efforts to count heat-related deaths can take weeks or months. But it is already apparent that the toll wrought by intense, unrelenting extreme temperatures is dire, as of mid-June, especially in France, which was the first country affected among elderly people dying at home.

“We’re facing a huge increase in deaths due to the heat wave, and we’re literally full, full,” Hertelli said.

The national public health agency said in its first preliminary forecast that deaths rose last week during the height of the heat wave in France; This scorched much of Europe’s largest country, with temperatures soaring above 40C (104F) in many places, while also setting records for overnight highs – a grueling one-two punch for tired bodies.

Public Health France said there were more than 1,200 deaths last Wednesday when France recorded hottest day everBy breaking the broken record just the day before.

It was later stated that the deaths increased to over 1,400 on Thursday and to 1,400 on Friday. By comparison, the pre-heatwave death rate was around 900 to 1,000 deaths per day in April and May.

The agency warned that the estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths during those three scorching days alone was expected to rise as more death certificates arrived for people who died at home and in senior care facilities, where most deaths were still not recorded electronically.

“As a result, the death rate will be higher than these initial figures,” the agency said.

Most of those who died were 65 or older

It was stated that 85 percent of the deaths recorded so far during the three days examined involved people aged 65 and over, and that there was a sharp increase in deaths at home by about 40 percent, especially in the Paris region.

Hertelli and others in the funeral industry said Paris morgues are rapidly running out of storage space. The municipality said two temporary storage units for 20 people each were set up for municipal morgues, and city hospitals provided 50 additional places.

Still, Hertelli said funeral directors he spoke to told him they had to store bodies as far away as Chartres, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Paris, and in other areas around the capital. He said he had asked authorities for permission to temporarily install refrigerated containers at Paris’s mortuary next to Orly airport to free up more space, but was still waiting for the green light.

He said families are suffering. “We don’t have a solution to offer them because the funeral homes are full. So we are very impressed, we empathize, but we have nothing to offer. We really are faced with a problem, a big problem.”

Temperatures reached historic highs

Historically high temperatures in 2003 were exceeded this time and were blamed for 15,000 deaths; This has led to a national reckoning over the care of the elderly, who have been particularly hard-hit. Last year, during the extremely hot summer months, more than 5,700 deaths were caused by heat.

Paris funeral director Véronique Bertrand said she feared the lessons would be forgotten.

“Most of the deaths we’re dealing with right now were people living alone at home, living in isolation. Given the conditions they were in, there can be no other conclusion other than that these were heat-related deaths,” Bertrand said. he said.

“I think people definitely need to wake up, solidarity needs to come back, what happened in 2003 sparked a movement in that direction, made people think about their neighbors, think about those around them who live alone, and maybe check from time to time whether they’re drinking water and whether they’re being looked after,” he said.

“We have perhaps forgotten in recent years that this could happen again and things could be even worse.”