Deaths increased by nearly a third in France during the hottest week of a record heatwave last month, the country’s public health authority has said.At least 2,000 more deaths were reported than in the previous week when temperatures were already climbing and filling emergency wards with heat victims.The report comes as parts of Europe are expected to experience high temperatures from this weekend.According to BBC Weather, high pressure is building from the Azores towards Portugal and Spain and heat is expected to climb across France and southern Britain.The new and still incomplete figures from Public Health France saw the agency double its first preliminary estimate last Sunday of at least 1,000 additional deaths. That earlier estimate covered just three of the hottest days of extreme heat.In Paris, funeral service directors said they have struggled to find places to store bodies before burial or cremation, with some mortuaries saying they were full and having to turn bodies away.The updated tally of deaths from Public Health France spans the week of June 22nd to June 28th, during which France saw its hottest-ever days and records broken for peak daytime and night-time temperatures in many cities and towns across the country. The heat also broke temperature records in many other parts of Europe.Paramedics take a patient to the emergency department of the Paris-Saclay Hospital. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP Public Health France said it has counted 8,973 deaths so far for that week, cautioning that the number is still partial. It said the preliminary total was 29 per cent more than the 6,948 deaths registered for the previous week of June 15th to June 21st, when the heatwave started.The difference between the two sets of figures – a total so far of 2,025 – is therefore considered to be additional deaths from one week to the next, from all causes and covering all age groups, it said.[ The heat dome is back over Europe. Does that mean another heatwave for Ireland?Opens in new window ]At the Paris-Saclay Hospital, the number of patients suffering from heat exposure started to increase on June 20th, Dr Nicolas Gonzales, head of the emergency department, told the Associated Press.He said they treated heat victims for heart attacks, dehydration, kidney malfunctions and other heat-related problems, from children to older people living alone.Doctors and nurses take care of a patient at the emergency department of the Paris-Saclay Hospital. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP Public Health France said there was a particularly sharp increase week-on-week in the number of deaths in private homes, with those figures up 91 per cent. Deaths in care homes for older people increased by 37 per cent and in hospitals by nearly 20 per cent.The Paris region appears to have been hit hardest, with a nearly 63 per cent increase in deaths from one week to the next, it said.The health agency cautioned that its tallies underestimate the true death toll, because they are based on incomplete data.“The mortality will as a consequence be higher than these first figures,” it said.[ El Niño conditions ‘developing rapidly’ with ‘extreme weather events’ more likelyOpens in new window ]In Belgium, the health ministry said on Thursday it had registered excess mortality of about 1,200 deaths between June 18th and June 29th, adding that 530 of the deaths were among people aged 85 ‌or older. People aged ⁠under 65 accounted for 180 of the excess deaths.“Such excess mortality during a heatwave is unprecedented in our ‌country,” the ministry said in a statement.Authorities in the Netherlands said ​the heatwave led to about 480 excess deaths, ​mainly among the over 80s. The United Nations weather agency on Friday raised its forecast for the ‌rapid emergence of a strong El Niño in the coming months, warning that the phenomenon is likely to drive ​global temperatures higher.El Niño is a periodic warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which typically lasts between nine and 12 months. It can drive up global temperatures and increase the ​risk of extreme weather, according to the World Meteorological Organisation. – AP/Reuters