They said 70 percent of those who died were elderly people, many of them in their nineties. The upsurge of deaths has forced the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Genoa to exceptionally allow funerals to take place on Sunday.

Funeral home staff have been recalled from holidays, according to the ANSA news agency.

The number of deaths is by far the highest attributed to the heat by an Italian local authority, after a week in which several cities have reported an increase in the number of elderly dying.

"On average, we are registering around 30 deaths a day more than compared to last year," said Genoa mayor Alberto Ghio, adding that the death rate was showing signs of slowing down. He said 52 people had died on Wednesday, while only 13 had died on Friday.

"The heat has probably drastically worsened the situation of the weakest who where unable to survive such a long period of mugginess as this," he added.

He said 67 funerals would take place around the city on Saturday alone.

In Milan, 20 mostly elderly people were reported to have died from heat-related health complications in the previous 24 hours, officials in Italy's financial capital said Friday.

In Naples, five elderly people were reported to have died from heat-related complications on Friday.]

Italian authorities say the overall death rate among the elderly has shown a noticable increase because of the heat, which has hovered around 35 degrees centigrade (95 degrees fahrenheit) in the north for the past two months, exacerbated by high humidity.

Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia said the number of recent deaths directly attributable to the heatwave was unknown.

"We don't know how many people are dead, but we know with certainty that in these temperatures something happens: it doesn't worry the 20-year athlete, but the same isn't true for the elderly person with heart problems," Sirchia told the daily Corriere della Sera.

He said Italy along with France was facing an emergency situation, and called for increased surveillance of the elderly, especially those living alone.

"One thing is to better equip the system of summer surveillance for the elderly. Another is to organise a central system of home assistance which we absolutely need and which at the moment doesn't exist."

Hospital registrars in Padua said figures for the Sant'Antonio geriatric hospital showed 78 deaths recently as against 64 for the same period last year. In Verona, in the period from July 1 to Aug 14, there were 272 recorded deaths compared to 222 in the same period in 2002.

TERRA.WIRE