Humanity’s burning of fossil fuels directly led to the deaths of at least 1,500 people in a European heatwave last week, a landmark study said.

Europe's latest spell of sizzling heat, which ended last week, caused a threefold rise in heat-related deaths because human-induced climate change boosted the intensity of the heat wave, British scientists said.

The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution calculated that climate change might have tripled the death toll from the event.