Hospitals in India on Thursday battled to treat victims of a blistering heatwave that has claimed more than 1,700 lives in just over a week — the highest number recorded in two decades.
Hundreds of mainly poor people die at the height of summer every year in India, but this year’s figures are already the highest since 1995, when official data show 1,677 people succumbed to the heat.
In southern Andhra Pradesh — by far the worst-hit state, where top temperatures have reached 47oC — 1,334 people have died since May 18, according to The Press Trust of India news agency.
Photo: EPA
Doctors said they had never seen so many severe cases.
“Our wards are completely full,” said J.V. Subbarao, medical officer at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Medical Sciences in Andhra Pradesh. “I have worked as a medical officer in this district for 40 years and I have never seen anything like this, with so many people arriving already dead.”
Subbarao said most of the worst-affected people were poor and elderly who were simply unaware of the dangers of heat stroke, which can be fatal if left untreated.
Another 340 people have died from the heatwave in neighboring Telangana State, where temperatures hit 48oC over the weekend, compared with 31 such deaths in the whole of last year.
Experts say official figures for heat-related deaths likely underestimate the true number because extreme weather conditions disproportionately affect poor people, who are less likely to die in hospitals.
The Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi research group, said the high number of deaths could be due to the sudden onset of the heat this year.
“This could be due to the sudden change in temperatures after a prolonged wet February and March that had kept the temperatures cool,” said Arjuna Srinidhi, the group’s program manager for climate change.
Hospitals in Delhi, where top temperatures have soared to 45oC, were struggling to cope with the fallout.
“Hospitals are overflowing with heatstroke victims,” Delhi Medical Association president Ajay Lekhi said.
“Patients are complaining of severe headache and dizziness. They are also showing symptoms of delirium,” Lekhi added, describing what is a common symptom of severe dehydration.
The surge in demand for electricity from air conditioners led to power cuts in parts of Delhi, exacerbating the misery for residents of the capital.
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