PARIS, 15 August 2003 — France’s Health Ministry said yesterday that up to 3,000 people might have died across the country from a two-week heat wave that scorched much of Europe, confirming the toll put forward by doctors who had accused the government of underestimating the scale of the disaster. “The (death) figures are high, perhaps even very high... We can now talk about what happened as a true epidemic, with everything that means in terms of the number of victims,” Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei said in an interview to France Inter radio.
A statement from his ministry said that “the number of deaths directly or indirectly linked to the heat during this period can be estimated at around 3,000 for all of France.”
The acknowledgement followed days of warnings from doctors, police and undertakers that bodies had piled up staggeringly quickly in the 40 degree Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit) temperatures that had baked the country.
An association of hospital emergency room doctors, AMUHF, which had accused the government of underestimating the crisis, held a news conference to say it estimated 2,000 people had died during the hot weather.
“The figures are becoming catastrophic,” the head of the association, Patrick Pelloux, said. “We can talk about thousands of victims, even though we can’t yet fully measure the phenomenon.”
A hospital workers’ union leader, Francois Freisse, said that even though the heat wave appeared to have receded over much of France yesterday, heat-stroke victims were still expected in the coming days.
He also singled out the government, saying “the authorities didn’t react immediately when faced with the seriousness of the situation.”
Pelloux called on the government to expand nationally an emergency medical plan put in place in and around Paris Wednesday that is normally reserved for epidemics, disasters or terrorist attacks. The plan provides extra hospital beds and staff, and permits temporary morgues to be set up.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced the plan after city officials and unions raised the alarm.
A police officers’ trade union, Synergie Officiers, on Wednesday said there had been a “massive loss of life in Paris these past weeks”.
