Killer heatwaves are ravaging India

Northern India is experiencing record temperatures. A report predicts similar events will be 45 times more likely in future – and informal sector workers and poorer schoolchildren are set to bear the brunt.

Even in a country so accustomed to spells of searing heat, India has been grappling with temperatures that have seen the mercury rise to increasingly unbearable heights – and with fatal consequences.

Delhi recorded close to 50C (122F) in May, while the heatwave sweeping across other states in northern India has taken a substantial toll on the nation’s election workers. According to experts, rising summer temperatures are here to stay.

As many as 61 people have died due to the current heatwave, including 33 on election duty and a voter in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, as well as eight on election duty in neighboring Bihar.

The Health Ministry confirmed 56 heat-related deaths in the country by May 30, 46 of which had happened in that month alone.

The Indian Meteorological Department issued an orange alert (cautioning people to “be prepared”) on June 1, the final day of voting, and the ‘loo’ – the hot summer wind – depressed the turnout by 61.63%, 3.5% lower than in 2019.

What is worrying is that the latest World Weather Attribution Report released last month predicts that such heatwaves will be 45 times more likely (compared to pre-industrial times) in the years to come, attributing the cause to human-induced climate change.

The thermo-regulatory sensors of the body – responsible for temperature control by making the body sweat – go out of whack as the temperature rises above 47C or 48C, says D Himanshu of the department of medicine at the King George Medical University in Lucknow, UP. The body’s temperature then keeps rising.

If a person has not drunk enough water, the sweating stops and the condition worsens. If the body temperature goes beyond 40C, patients may have fever due to heatstroke.

This fever is different as it is caused due to the malfunctioning of thermo-regulators and not due to the immune system’s activity, rendering normal fever medicines like paracetamol failures.

The latest WWA report says one of the reasons for the low voter turnout in the 2024 election could be the extreme heatwave.

The Met department circulated to the Election Commission a list of Assured Minimum Facilities that included provisions for drinking water, arrangements for shade. and proper furniture for senior citizens, persons with disabilities and pregnant women.

However, the instructions for air-coolers or fans for voters and polling officers were missing from that list.

While India has implemented Heat Action Plans in 23 of its 29 states to minimize casualties – the government claims to have reduced the number from 2,040 casualties in 2015 to 27 in 2021, thanks to these plans – there are discrepancies in the data.

The problem is that on a death certificate most medical professionals write organ failure as the cause of death instead of heat-stress that led to the organ failure. This makes it difficult to collate the cause of death to the heat wave.

With 4,903 government hospitals in UP, this tallies to 39,000 to 49,000 heatstroke-related patients every day in UP alone. The actual all-India number, with several states under orange alert, could be in the millions!

The WWA report adds that while climate change has made the April heat wave in India 45 times more likely, other nearby countries, especially those in South, West, and South-east Asia, are likely to face even worse conditions in the future.

The report adds that Bangladesh and Pakistan faced heat waves disrupting lives, leading to the closure of schools, and widening the existing education gap.

India currently has a 12.6% drop-out rate in secondary school, which is lower than ever before – but might rise along with the heat. The extreme heat has forced thousands of schools to close in South and Southeast Asia,” the report says.

These regions have previously also incurred school lock-downs during Covid-19, increasing the education gap faced by children from low-income families, enhancing the risk of dropouts, and negatively impacts the development of human capital.

West Asia and the Philippines might have one such heat wave once every ten years while the countries come under the current El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions.

The report attributed the rise in frequency and intensity of the heatwave to human-induced climate change. Heatwaves such as this one in West Asia are today about 1.7C warmer than they would have been without the burning of fossil fuels.

In the Philippines the intensity increase due to human-induced climate change is about 1.2C/

The WWA underscores the importance of heat wave action plans and strategies in these countries, but adds that rapidly growing cities, an increase in informal settlements and exposed populations, a reduction in green spaces, and a rise in energy demands pose major challenges to their implementation.

Heat index is the combination of humidity and temperature that our IMD and HAPs do not address, but it is worse than dry heat.

The apparent temperature is the temperature that is felt by the body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. So while the temperature might itself be 45 degrees, if humidity is high, it can feel like 53, a killer combination.

RT. com / ABC Flash Point News 2024.