Spain heatwave may have killed 200, with temperatures near 40C

Spain’s health ministry said about 200 people may have died since Sunday as the country’s first official heatwave of 2026 drove Madrid to 40C and kept the national weather agency’s alerts elevated through Thursday, June 24. The toll underscores how heat deaths often lag behind the hottest hours, surfacing after bodies have been stressed for days.

Agencia Estatal de Meteorología said the heatwave began on Sunday, June 21, and was expected to last until at least Thursday. Mainland Spain recorded its highest daily average temperatures in June since at least 1950, with 28.08C on Monday and 28.17C on Tuesday. Those same two days also set the highest June average minimum temperatures on record since 1950, a sign that the nights were offering little relief.

The hottest conditions were not limited to the capital. Cantabria and the Basque Country, usually cooler parts of northern Spain, were placed under the highest alert levels as temperatures climbed above 40C. The Canary Islands were largely spared, highlighting how uneven the impact of the same weather system could be across the country.

Spain’s MoMo monitoring system, run by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, estimates heat-related mortality using excess-death data and weather inputs. That method reflects a pattern that has become increasingly familiar in Spanish summers: the public-health damage becomes clearest after the spike, not just during it. Environment Ministry figures showed 1,180 heat-related deaths in Spain between May 16 and July 13 last year, compared with 114 in the same period in 2024.

The burden fell overwhelmingly on older people. More than 95% of those who died were over 65, and close to two-thirds were women, the government said. As the heatwave pushed across Spain, authorities warned people to avoid overexposure to the sun and to take precautions during so-called tropical nights, when temperatures stay high enough to make sleep difficult and threaten public health. The broader European forecast was also set to remain sharply above normal on Thursday, keeping pressure on heat plans that still leave the frailest residents most exposed.