The UN agency specialized in weather, climate and water, assured that in countries where climate warning services are scarce, mortality due to natural disasters is eight times higher.

According to the WMO, the consequences of extreme high temperatures are underestimated, despite the fact that deaths from this cause can exceed 30 times the indicators currently recorded.

In the period 2000-2019, mortality due to heat, according to estimates, was about 489 thousand people annually, particularly high in Asia (45 percent) and Europe (36 percent).

In Europe, high temperatures in the summer of 2022 killed more than 60,000 people in 35 countries, the WMO report stated.

He added that heat waves aggravate air pollution, which is already responsible for seven million premature deaths each year, and is the fourth cause of death by health risk factor.

ef/rgh/crc