Status: 05/03/2022 3:31 p.m
India is groaning under an extreme heatwave that has claimed at least 25 lives. In neighboring Pakistan, there is a risk of flooding due to extreme snowmelt. There is no sign of relaxation in either country.
In India, the extreme heat has claimed the lives of more than two dozen people in the state of Maharashtra alone, with the capital Mumbai. Since the end of March, 25 deaths have been attributed to heat stroke, a state spokesman said. There have not been so many heat deaths for more than five years.
Most of the victims are in rural areas. It is considered likely that there are other heatstroke victims in other parts of the country. Temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius have recently been measured in many areas. In Subarnapur in the state of Odisha, the thermometer climbed to 43.2 degrees.
Some landfills around the country caught fire – due to the heat and a build-up of gases, the fire department said. In the capital, New Delhi, the Bhalswa landfill burned for days, blanketing the area in toxic smoke. Some schools in the area had to close. Children and the elderly in particular suffered from breathing problems because of the gases, the TV station “India Today” reported.
Firefighters in New Delhi survey a fire at the Bhalswa landfill site. The landfill, which covers an area of more than 50 football pitches and has a pile taller than a 17-story building, caught fire from extreme heat.
Image: dpa
Experts: Extreme weather is becoming more common
The extreme heat is affecting hundreds of millions of people in densely populated countries like India and Pakistan these days, the World Meteorological Organization recently warned. Temperatures around 45 degrees are not uncommon in the region. But it’s usually not that hot in late April or early May.
This is also confirmed by an analysis by Mariam Zachariah and Friederike Otto from Imperial College in London. “Before the increase in global temperatures, we would have experienced the heat that India experienced this month about once in 50 years,” Zachariah explained. Now such an event occurs about every four years. As long as the emission of greenhouse gases is not stopped, it will occur even more frequently.
Power and crop failures
The heat causes power consumption to skyrocket. Coal stocks, on which India is very dependent, are not full. This has recently led to power outages lasting hours, so that even wealthy families who can afford air conditioning cannot always hope for cooling.
In view of the heat, large wheat producers are also threatened with a crop failure. In the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, there was a 10 to 35 percent drop in wheat yields due to the early heat wave, as reported by The Economic Times newspaper.
Pakistan warns of flooding
In India’s neighboring country Pakistan, authorities warned of floods due to the rapidly melting snow on the Hindu Kush mountains.
The provincial government has put the civil protection authority on alert. According to Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, the amount of rain this year was more than half that of previous years.
After all, the weather services of the two countries announced a certain cooling off in many regions and light rain at the beginning of the week. However, higher temperatures than usual are expected in various regions soon, according to the weather services of both countries.