Europes record heat has overwhelmed Paris mortuaries and left families in distress

PARIS — Every few minutes, the mortuary owner’s phone rings.Since a record-smashing heat wave started taking lives and storage space for bodies in Paris and beyond, the funeral directors and mourning families calling him mostly have the same question: Do you have room for one more?With all 32 places in his cold room taken, Zouhaeir Hertelli reluctantly has to gently say “Non,” over and over and over again.“We’re facing a really catastrophic situation,” he said.

“I’m getting hundreds of calls.”As the historic heat wave shifted its deadly temperatures eastward this weekend to other parts of Europe, France began counting the human cost it left in its wake.The statistical and public health work of tallying heat-related deaths could take weeks or months.But it’s already apparent that the toll exacted by the intense, unrelenting extreme temperatures was terrible in France, the first country hit from mid-June, particularly among older people who died at home.“We’re dealing with an enormous spike of deaths because of the heat wave and we’re really full, full, full,” Hertelli said.In its first preliminary estimate, the national public health agency said deaths surged during the heat wave’s peak in France last week, which roasted most of Europe’s largest country with temperatures that soared in many places above 40C (104 F) and also broke records for nighttime highs — an exhausting one-two punch for fatigued bodies.Public Health France said there were more than 1,200 deaths last Wednesday, when France registered its hottest-ever day, breaking a record that had been set just the previous day.

By way of comparison, the pre-heat wave death rate in April and May was around 900 to 1,000 per day, it said.There were more than 1,400 deaths on Thursday and another 1,400 on Friday, it said.The agency cautioned that its estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths during those three sizzling days is expected to increase as more death certif...