The BC Coroners Service has reported 719 sudden deaths in the past week, triple the number that would normally occur in the province, CBC reports.
"We are releasing this information as it is believed likely the extreme weather B.C. has experienced in the past week is a significant contributing factor to the increased number of deaths," Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner said in a release.
This comes after a dangerous and unrelenting heat wave crushed temperature records across the province.
Earlier this week, police in Metro Vancouver said they experienced a spike in calls related to sudden deaths under the oppressive heat.
Lapointe says the coroners service received an unprecedented number of reports of sudden and unexpected deaths throughout the province from last Friday to Thursday.
She says B.C. had seen only three heat-related deaths in the past three to five years before the heat wave.
"Many of our health services, our first responders, we haven't experienced anything like this in the province previously. It took a bit of time for us to ramp up our response. There were some delays in reaching the coroner and there were some delays in responding to scenes," Lapointe said in a briefing earlier this week.
She added: "We feel much more confident now that we can respond more quickly."
As the heat wave warning has ended throughout many parts of the province, Lapointe says the coroners service is seeing a downward trend in deaths reported in the last few days.
