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B.C. has seen nearly three times the number of sudden deaths during the past week’s heat wave, many of them seniors living alone in private residences, says the province’s chief coroner.

At least 486 sudden and unexpected deaths were reported over the past five days, coroner Lisa Lapointe said Wednesday — well above the approximately 165 such deaths that would normally occur in the province over a five-day period. An update on these numbers is expected Friday.

“We suspect that many of the deaths are attributable to the heat — we won’t with certainty know an exact number until we have all our data entered and we’ve done the analysis — but absolutely we do know that people, many people, have been found in residences that are very, very warm and not ventilated,” Lapointe said.

The deaths are under investigation and a preliminary analysis should be ready in the next two to three months, but the significant increase is likely attributable to the extreme weather B.C. is experiencing, she added. A detailed report will take longer and will come with recommendations.

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said the report “will be crucial in how we move forward” with emergency planning “if and when an event happens like this again.”

Anecdotally, the deaths were in older people with underlying health conditions who lived alone in private residences such as condos, said Lapointe. In these cases there’s no one to account for their final hours.

There have been about three heat-related deaths in the past five years, according to the province. “We have not seen extreme heat events in B.C., certainly not like this,” Lapointe said.

A death is recorded as “heat-related” if excessive heat is believed to have contributed to the person’s death — even if they have underlying health conditions, she said.

Coroners have been working around the clock with first responders and in some cases have been delayed in responding to reported deaths. More resources have been allocated, to bring down the wait times, she said.

Dr. Ben Williams, chief medical officer of Island Health, couldn’t say how many sudden deaths on the Island were suspected to be related to heat but he did report a “substantial number of heat-related visits to emergency departments.”

People with underlying health conditions, particularly heart conditions and blood pressure problems, will struggle in extreme heat, he said.

“But it’s generally as we get older, and we become more frail, we have less capacity to deal with changes in the environment and so we do see that the very young and the very old, and people with chronic health conditions have significant challenges in extreme heat.”

The coroners service has participated in earthquake and marine disaster exercises, but “having experienced this event, over the last few days, we will all be looking at what planning do we have in place for extreme heat events in terms of response as agencies, but also in terms of response for our family and our employees,” said Lapointe.

“This is definitely an opportunity for everybody in the province to take a look at what, what do we need to do differently,” she said.

Asked what more the province could have done to prevent heat-related deaths, Farnworth said the province has — since June 25 — reached out and supported local communities and First Nations through Emergency Management B.C. to ensure cooling centres opened and there was transportation to and from them, and staff wages and overtime were covered.

Emergency Management B.C. has also been working with the First Nations Health Authority and Indigenous Services Canada throughout this event, he said.

Farnworth said the government will need to take a hard look at what needs to change for the future as people scramble for air conditions, heat pumps and fans. More than a dozen actions are underway for the first phase of a climate change preparedness adaption strategy, he said.

In addition, Emergency Management B.C. is “working on a complete rewrite of the Emergency Program Act that has traditionally dealt with fires and floods. … My expectation is the events of this [past] weekend with this unprecedented heatwave are also going to be factored in and that work developed in the legislation.”

“There’s a lot of work that is going to take place and I’m confident that we will get it done,” said Farnworth.

ceharnett@timescolonist.com