Catalonia is in its second heatwave of the summer, and public health officials are warning residents to take extra care after 43 heat-related deaths were recorded between Sunday 22 June and Monday 30 June. The deaths were logged by the Mortality Monitoring System of Spain's Carlos III Health Institute, which tracks mortality linked to extreme temperatures each day from 15 May to 30 September.

For residents, the clearest risk is to older people and others with underlying health problems during this prolonged spell of extreme heat. According to the Carlos III data, eight in ten heat-related deaths involve people aged over 65, and the Generalitat, the Catalan government, says the current episode is lasting longer than comparable periods in recent summers.

"We've never had a June with such sustained extreme temperatures: it's clear that we'll see a spike in mortality during this period, and we'll see what happens in July and August," said Jacobo Mendioroz, Deputy Director General of Public Health Surveillance and Emergency Response at the Catalan government, in comments reported by ARA.

Esteve Fernández, the Secretary of Public Health at the Generalitat, also warned in an interview with ARA that high temperatures are having serious consequences for people's health and called for extreme caution, especially for the most vulnerable.

What the latest death figures show

The 43 deaths recorded in Catalonia over that nine-day period match the figure reported for the same point in 2022, the year with the highest overall heat-related mortality since the monitoring system began in 2015. In 2022, a total of 582 people in Catalonia died because of high temperatures, according to the Carlos III institute's tracking data.

ARA reported that, within the June 2025 deaths counted by the monitoring system, 22 were women and 21 were men. All were aged over 65 except for one person in the 45 to 65 age range, and 13 of the dead were aged over 85.

  • Deaths attributed to heat in Catalonia between 22 and 30 June: 43
  • Period covered by the Carlos III summer mortality monitoring system: 15 May to 30 September
  • Total heat-related deaths in Catalonia in 2022: 582

Spain-wide, 265 deaths had been attributed to high temperatures so far this year at the time of reporting, according to the same monitoring system.

Why officials are concerned about this heatwave

Public health officials say the current heat is arriving earlier and lasting longer than in the previous two summers. According to reporting by ARA, the temperature threshold associated with higher mortality in Catalonia was reached in mid-July in both 2023 and 2024, and those episodes lasted fewer than five days. In 2025, that threshold was reached in June and the hot spell has been more prolonged.

Research has already shown how severe the impact can be. A 2025 study published in the Journal of Geographical Systems found that 49.41% of excess mortality in Catalonia during the summer of 2022 was attributable to extreme heat. A separate study in Frontiers in Public Health reported 17,551 deaths in Catalonia in the summer of 2022, compared with 16,416 in the summer of 2021.

People most at risk include older residents, children and people with neurological or other serious health conditions, according to the public health experts cited by ARA. Residents can monitor weather warnings through Meteocat, the Meteorological Service of Catalonia, and through AEMET, Spain's state weather agency.

Primary sources: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, en.meteocat.gencat.cat. Reported by Source Text Link, catalannews.com, link.springer.com, frontiersin.org, Gemma Garrido Granger, Albert Diumenjó Segalà, Albert Diumenjó Segalà, Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, europapress.es, Agència Estatal de Meteorología, lavanguardia.com, David Martínez Blanco, Xavi Segura, tiempo.com, Marina Ortiz, Diari ARA.