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Death Toll Surpasses 1,300 as Heat Shifts East

The death toll from the historic European heatwave surpassed 1,300 on Monday as temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius pushed eastward into the Balkans and Ukraine, overwhelming hospitals, straining power grids and forcing mass evacuations from wildfires that have scorched thousands of hectares across the region. The scorching heat, which first swept Western Europe in late June before shifting east, has set new records in Romania, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where emergency officials declared national states of alert. According to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the duration and intensity of the heat event ranks among the top three on record for the continent. Temperatures in Athens reached 44 degrees on Sunday, prompting the Greek government to close the Acropolis and issue directives for all outdoor workers. The heat has killed at least 30 people in Greece, 20 in Romania and 12 in Serbia, according to preliminary tallies from health ministries in those countries. The elderly, outdoor workers and those without access to cooling have accounted for the majority of fatalities, health officials said, warning that the true figure is likely significantly higher as remote rural areas have not yet been fully counted.

Balkans Wildfires Force Mass Evacuations

Wildfires fanned by winds exceeding 60 kilometres per hour spread rapidly across the Dalmatian coast of Croatia and into Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday and Monday, destroying more than 15,000 hectares of forest and forcing the evacuation of at least four villages near Split, the Croatian fire service said in a statement. Firefighting aircraft from Slovenia and France were deployed to assist Croatian crews as local resources were stretched beyond capacity. In Bosnia, authorities declared a state of natural disaster in three canton-level jurisdictions after blazes near Mostar and Trebinje damaged residential property and disrupted road transport. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić addressed the nation on Monday, saying the country faced its most severe wildfire season in recorded history and urging citizens to comply with official evacuation orders. “We are deploying every available resource to protect lives and property,” Vučić said in a televised statement. Serbia’s Emergency Situations Directorate reported that more than 3,500 hectares had burned in the southern region of Vranje alone since Saturday. Across the western Balkans, more than 200 fires were burning simultaneously at the peak of the crisis on Sunday, according to data compiled by the European Forest Fire Information System.

Ukraine Grid Under Severe Strain as Temperatures Climb

The Ukrainian energy grid faced mounting pressure as temperatures in Kyiv and surrounding regions climbed to 38 degrees, exacerbating damage to infrastructure from ongoing Russian strikes and increasing demand for cooling that the war-ravaged system is ill-equipped to meet. Ukraine’s state electricity operator Ukrenergo issued a statement on Monday urging citizens to reduce power consumption between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and warning that scheduled outages were likely in several regions if demand continued to outpace supply. According to the International Energy Agency, Russia’s repeated strikes on Ukrainian power plants since March 2025 have knocked out approximately 40 percent of the country’s generation capacity. Ukrainian Energy Minister German Halushka told the Associated Press in a phone interview that the government was working to restore at least partial capacity before the onset of autumn. “We are doing everything possible to keep the lights on and hospitals functioning, but the combination of war damage and extreme heat is a challenge unlike anything we have faced,” Halushka said. The Ukrainian Ministry of Health reported a 35 percent increase in heat-related hospital admissions compared with the same period last year, with the elderly and outdoor workers accounting for the majority of cases. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, authorities opened 47 cooling centres in public buildings to provide respite for residents without functioning air conditioning.

What Comes Next

Forecasters at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said the heat dome responsible for the prolonged spell was expected to begin weakening from the west by Thursday, but temperatures in the eastern Balkans and central Ukraine were forecast to remain above 35 degrees through the weekend. Health officials warned that the death toll was likely to rise further as the full count from remote rural areas trickles in over the coming days. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc stood ready to activate its civil protection mechanism to assist affected member states, and that emergency funding discussions would be tabled at an extraordinary session of EU defence and interior ministers scheduled for Thursday in Brussels. The World Health Organization urged governments across the region to prioritise access to cooling for vulnerable populations and to prepare health systems for a potential surge in heat-related illnesses in the days ahead.