Over 18,000 people died in Italy due to the intense heat the nation endured last summer, according to a new study.

The study, coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and published in the Nature Medicine journal, said that Italy had the highest heat-related death toll in Europe in the summer of 2022, with 18,100 mortalities out of a total of 61,672 for the whole continent.

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Spain was second with 11,324 deaths followed by Germany with 8.173.

Europe was hit by a series of intense heatwaves last year that led to drought and devastating wildfires.

The study said the average temperature in Europe was about 2° Celsius above the average for the period last summer.

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In France it was 2.43° above average while in Italy it was 2.28° higher.

Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human greenhouse gas emissions is causing extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought, supercharged storms and flooding to be more frequent and more intense.