For construction worker Yogendra Tundre, life at a building site on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi is hard enough. This year, record high temperatures are making it unbearable.
As India grapples with an unprecedented heat wave, the country’s vast majority of poor workers, who generally work outdoors, are vulnerable to the scorching temperatures.
“There is too much heat, and if we won’t work, what will we eat?” Tundre said. “For a few days, we work and then we sit idle for a few days because of tiredness and heat.”
Photo: Reuters
Temperatures in the New Delhi area have touched 45°C this year, often causing Tundre and his wife, Lata, who works at the same construction site, to become sick. That in turn means they lose income.
“Because of heat, sometimes I don’t go to work. I take days off... many times, fall sick from dehydration and then require glucose bottles [intravenous fluids],” Lata said while standing outside their house, a temporary shanty with a tin roof.
Scientists have linked the early onset of intense summers to climate change, and say more than 1 billion people in India and neighboring Pakistan are at risk from the extreme heat.
India suffered its hottest March in more than 100 years, and parts of the country experienced their highest temperatures on record last month.
Many places, including New Delhi, saw the temperature exceed 40°C. More than two dozen people have died of suspected heat strokes since late March, and power demand has hit multi-year highs.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on state governments to draft measures to mitigate the effects of the extreme heat.
Tundre and Lata live with their two young children in a slum near a construction site in Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi. They moved from their home state of Chhattisgarh in central India to seek work and higher wages around the capital.
On the construction site, laborers scale up walls, lay concrete and carry heavy loads, using ragged scarves around their heads as protection against the sun.
Even when the couple finish their day’s work, they have little respite as their home is hot, having absorbed the heat of the sun all day long.
Avikal Somvanshi, an urban environment researcher from India’s Centre for Science and Environment, said that heat stress was the most common cause of death from natural forces, after lightning, in the past 20 years.
“Most of these deaths occur in men aged 30 to 45. These are working class, blue-collar men who have no option but to be working in the scorching heat,” Somvanshi said.
There are no laws in India to prevent outdoor activity when temperatures exceed a certain level, unlike in some Middle-Eastern countries, Somvanshi said.
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