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Apparently, there is a "heatwave" going through the UK atm. Over 700 people have died from it so far, with that number expected to rise.

While that's horrible, apparently the hottest its gotten is 30 degrees celsius. Aka 86 degrees F°.

How the **** is such a low amount of heat killing so many people? Here in America we had heat waves of like 115°, and had nowhere near the deaths the UK has had.

mothaf0ckaz been drinking tea trying to hydrate themself and been dying and shit as a result

It is finally raining after weeks here in Estonia. This summer hasn't been so hot, last summer it was 35° or higher in my cottage for most of the time, nobody died.

86 degrees? this has to be some typo

Well, most old/sick people simply can't handle the heat.

Humidity is probably the reason.
In the humid Netherlands it's already terrible when it's like 26-28 degrees Celsius.
In the dry Bulgaria, even 38 degrees Celsius is easily bearable.

Compare that to UK, which is even more humid than the Netherlands, I suppose it's possible... People probably choking to death or something. With that said, 700 seems a bit high... Either it's a typo, or there's more to it.

It doesn't surprise me all too much.
As poehalcho said, it is about the humidity. In Denmark 26 degrees is probably the same as 32-35 degrees in Croatia (where I'm on vacation right now).

Also, people in the UK aren't used to that much heat. Seeing as they're not used to the heat, they're not used to drinking that much water. When they get too little water they simply fall over at some point (especially the elderly).

Nah, heard it from the BBC today on the radio. All the numbers are correct. And they said it could even double.

Eh, I'm from the south, humidity there is ridiculous, but I guess im used to it.

I just dont see how, in this day and age, people cant figure out a way to cope woth the heat. Shit be crazy.

Really? We're getting a constant stream of 90+ in NY this week. Drink water and get an AC or go to a cooling center or the mall. I'm guessing BBC counted all the deaths that could have been related to the heat (AKA a guy having a cardiac arrest on the street).

I live in Bosnia (right next to Croatia) and it sometimes it even gets to 40 degrees of Celsius. People don't die that often because of that, even though it happened. Just stay in the shadows and that's it.

This might seem like a silly question but do a lot of people have A/C in England? I know here in the south it's a necessity(as a land lord you have to provide a proper A/C unit to cool the house). But in California it was not a necessity because some places don't really get that hot. Where I used to live we only had central heating for night times.

I don't think so.
Countries with a sea-climate aren't big with AC's, since it never gets really warm nor really cold.
I don't think I've ever seen an AC in the Netherlands lol (apart from corporate buildings). In Bulgaria almost every apartment has an AC. UK probably has a very low AC count...

lawl. I live in Texas and it's way more hot here than 86 degrees.

Even with no ac, people shouldnt be dying

Hell, I do hard manual labor outside in 100 degree weather.

LOL.

I would kill for 86 degrees. It's 100+ here right now in NJ.

Here ACs are rare for homes.

700 people have died due to heat related illness? That's so shocking. Perhaps I'm just use to the heat, but summers here in Australia will see temperatures reaching 47-50 degrees Celsius. 40-42 Celsius is pretty common in the summer and a week or two of consistent 40+ degree weather is almost expected. Perhaps the people affected are simply not use to that sort of heat? None the less its a terrible thing to hear

over here the temperatore go from -40 to +40

aussie got it easy

Yep, worst temps I ever lived through was in Dubai. They faked the temperatures so that people wouldn't freak out. No joke. I believe I have went through 49-51 C with 85-90% humidity. Yes. 90%. That is possible. It is the worst feeling ever. The type where the air is so heavy you feel the pressure pressing against your body. We also tried to cook an egg on the asphalt. It worked. We let a glass of water outside for roughly 4-5 hrs and all the water evaporated. It was crap.

-40? Really? That's crazy! When I was living in Canberra the coldest I experienced was -8c at 7:30am (while I was getting ready for work). There was an incredibly thick layer of frost covering everything. It snows in the mountains here, but excluding the snowy areas it doesn't get much colder than -5c in winter. It's winter here atm and I've only had one or two days where the temp has dropped below 0c. Hell, it's the middle of winter and at 9am (current time) it's around 14c. Perfect morning, sunny skies ^___^

Sometimes it gets -35 in winter here too. And sometimes you get 70cm on snow in your garden if you don't plough enough.

My buddy who is a former Marine, and went to Iraq and Afghanistan round 2004, was riding home with me yesterday, he had been out in the heat next to a fire all day. We had just had a good 3 day rain, so the heat index was way up there. Anyways, on our way home he started throwing up in his lunch box, I said, "I can pull over if you need me to man?.." He was like, it's fine. He had sweat all over his face, yet it was a good 65 degrees in my truck, and I was pretty chilled. So next thing I know, I look over and his eyes are wide open, he's slouched over staring straight ahead with white foam rolling out of his mouth. I could tell he wasn't breathing. I yelled his name, and no response. I quickly pulled over to the side of the road, at that time his head and the rest of his body began to shake wildly... At this point all I can think is, he's gonna die. I didn't have anything to drop his body temp. and we were pretty far off from any hospital or major town for that matter... Bout the time I'm getting out to go unbuckle him and start to get his boots and stuff off(Fire Fighting training taught me a bit on how to deal with heat stroke), he comes too... He was confused and didn't understand why we were pulled over, he didn't even realize he had throw up or w/e that was all over him.

Just sharing this story, for those that think it couldn't happen to them. If it can happen to a Marine that's in great health, and has spent a good share of time in the desert, I can easily see how it could get an average elderly or sickly person.

Side note- As a fire fighter, I had seen my share of heat exhaustion and major dehydration, even carried buddies on my back cause the cramps wouldn't allow them to walk, but never have I seen something to this extent up until yesterday.(As far as heat related illness-- Of course seen plenty of burnt corpse, but that a different kinda heat problem)

TL;DR: Buddy almost died of a heat stroke yesterday on our way home. Pretty insane and scary shit.

There are a lot of factors, including urbanization. The 'Heat Island' effect is a major concern, so countries with a lot more widespread urban sprawl (like London) will see higher relative temperatures

Here a few pointers:

1. Housing is designed to retain heat (for winter)
2. Very, very little A/C in homes
3. Rail system isn't designed with heat in mind
4. Road systems aren't either
5. The elderly are pretty isolated
6. No cooling centers
7. Very few pools
8. No outdoor seating
9. Not enough drinking fountains
10. No siesta (I think this one is actually pretty irrelevant)

Apparently, Britain is ill-equipped for dealing with a heat wave, as opposed to the US where we're all about A/C, pools and cooling centers to beat the heat.

Media and there lies

"Up to 760 people dead so far" - Rubbish, here is the truth of it all.

1. There are lots of different things listed as 'cause of death', including 'influenza', 'senility' and 'malignant neoplasms' in national statistics. Neither 'sun' nor 'heatwave' are on the list.

2. Perhaps then, the statisticians looked at causes of death such as 'asthma' or 'pulmonary disease' that might have been aggravated in raised temperatures. That seems unlikely given that these statistics are released on an annual basis and statistics for 2012 were only just released a week ago.

3. Maybe, noticing this timing problem, the statisticians issued freedom of information requests to every coroner in the country. That's not only unlikely but also inaccurate - it can take up to five days to register a death, so the information received wouldn't be sufficient to understand what the mortality figures of our nine-day heatwave are so far.

One other method seems plausible: perhaps the researchers looked at the number of Brits that die each year and compared that to the number of heatwaves or average summer temperatures.

But let's assume that the researchers also controlled for a couple of things to be able to observe the effects of temperature. That would mean they've been able to take things like demography, changes in the provision of drugs and healthcare services out of the equation, as well as any diseases or viruses that may affect the number of deaths that are registered. That would allow them to really hone in on what the heatwave is doing to us.

If that were the case, they must have noticed a spike in the number of deaths, or to be more precise, predicted an increase. That 'spike' consists of 540-760 people of a total of about 110,000 deaths on average in England and Wales between June and August each year.

But averages don't always mean a lot - unless you're measuring something like the number of hours in a day, you'll always get numbers that differ from an average.

Damn, that's crazy.

It's true we don't handle warm weather well at all but take what the media say with a grain of salt.

"Scientists estimate that the heatwave could have caused hundreds of premature deaths"

Sound more like scare mongering to me and it's a constant thing over here, they'll say anything to make money.

Pro hot weather tip: Just go naked.

But yeah, the media is stupid sometimes/most of the time.

Love the heat Bud, no worries there matey.

A/C could make things worse. If you stay in the room with A/C whole day, and you go out, the sudden change of temperature could easily kill you. Happened here before.