With roads melting right before your eyes, the heat has become lethal in India, killing at least 1,412 people in May. After temperatures reached new benchmarks, rising to 47C, doctors were forced to postpone vacations to cope with sufferers.
India's two southern states, Andhra Pradesh and nearby Telangana,
are the worst affected areas. The heat has raged for over a week
and the death toll there is said to be more than double the toll
from last year's heat wave. In Andhra Pradesh alone, it has
reached 1,020, officials said, according to the Hindustan Times.
The two states have so far recorded over 800 heat-induced deaths,
the Indian Express reported. Local authorities have advised
people to stay indoors between 11am and 4pm, to avoid heat
stroke. On Tuesday, temperatures were reportedly at their peak in
some Telangana districts: Warangal (46 degrees Celsius),
Karimnagar (45 degrees Celsius) and Nizamabad (44 degrees
Celsius), according to the Indian Express.
I don't think we understand how hot it is in India. Roads are melting and people are doing all they can to stay cool: pic.twitter.com/VQ0rGnAHA2
— Maps Maponyane (@MapsMaponyane) 26 мая 2015
Very few can afford to stay at home, however. The elderly and the
poor, many of whom live in slums with no access to air
conditioning, are among the most vulnerable.
"I get headaches, fever sometimes. But (if I stay indoors)
how will I make money?" Akhlaq, 28, a scrap collector in
Delhi, where temperatures touched 45 Celsius on Tuesday, told
Reuters.
Hot, dry winds have swept across the capital and most parts of
north and central India. City residents have been desperate to
buy iced water and cold fruit. Across the country, many flock to
rivers to cool off.
The heat wave in India is so intense that streets are melting. High temperature of 122°F. Over 1,100 people dead. pic.twitter.com/ehqv0gT54K
— JRehling (@JRehling) 27 мая 2015
"With so many people dying due to the heat, we are locking
the children inside," a teacher in Khammam, which registered
its highest temperature in 67 years on Saturday when the
thermometer hit 48 degrees Celsius, told AP.
Working outside has become life threatening. "Either we have
to work, putting our lives under threat, or we go without
food," one farmer in the badly hit Nalgonda district of
southern Andhra Pradesh state said. "But we stop work when it
becomes unbearable."
However, in the city of Nizamabad, some 150 kilometers north of
the state capital of Hyderabad, construction workers are doing
their job “whatever the weather”.
"If I don't work due to the heat, how will my family
survive?" Mahalakshmi, who earns a daily wage of about
$3.10, told AP.
Incredible heat present across portions of India & Pakistan. Temperatures as high as 122F (50C) at Nawabshah, PK. pic.twitter.com/lDBSGaxAL9
— Anthony Sagliani (@anthonywx) 23 мая 2015
May and June are usually the two hottest months in India, with
temperatures easily soaring to 40 Celsius and higher. But
according to meteorologists, the number of days when temperatures
hit 45 Celsius has increased in the past 15 years.
The residents of Hathibarkala, Salawala and Chandralok colonies
staged a protest saying they had been facing acute water
shortages for the past two weeks and had been forced to depend on
water tankers, for which they had to shell out huge amounts of
money, the Times of India reported.
"One water tanker costs between Rs 250 to 400 and the quality of
water is bad," Naresh Gupta, a Chandralok colony resident, told
the paper.
On Monday, women in the Indira colony protested in front of the
water works department near Dilaram Chowk. "Our locality has
been facing problems with water supply for a month. The supply
comes for less than an hour a day and even then the pressure is
very low, " Kusum Semwal, an Indira colony resident, said,
adding that although residents have complained numerous times,
the problem is still there.
Meteorologists say the scorching spell of weather is most likely
to continue for at least another week, with soothing monsoon
rains expected to arrive in the southern state of Kerala in the
first week of June.