Highest temperatures 5 degrees above average
Patients aged 60 and over die one after another
"I've never seen such heat in my lifetime"
Nearly 100 residents have reportedly died in India, which is experiencing a deadly heatwave.
The British media outlet The Guardian reported on the 19th (local time) that 54 and 42 people respectively died from the heat last week in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in northern India, and Bihar in the east.
These areas recorded a maximum temperature of 43 degrees Celsius that day, which was 5 degrees higher than the average. Humidity reaching 25% trapped heat in the atmosphere, further raising the perceived temperature.
Indian health authorities stated that most of the deceased were residents aged 60 or older and had underlying complications. They also advised all residents to stay indoors during daytime hours as much as possible.
On the 18th (local time), a man in the Lalitpur area of Uttar Pradesh, northern India, is splashing water on his face to cool down. [Image source=Yonhap News]
A local medical official told the media, "About 300 patients were admitted to hospitals with heat-related illnesses over the past three days." As the number of heat illness patients surged, health authorities reportedly canceled medical staff vacations and added extra beds in emergency rooms in the affected areas. Patients generally exhibited symptoms such as high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, breathing difficulties, and heart-related issues.
A resident who lost his father to the scorching heat last week told The Guardian, "The emergency room at the hospital where my father was being cared for kept seeing an increasing influx of patients."
He added, "This is the first time I have seen something like this in the area," and lamented, "I have never seen so many people die because of the heat."
He continued, "People are so afraid to go outside," adding, "The roads and markets are desolate."
Generally, temperatures in India peak during the summer months of April to June. However, over the past decade, summer temperatures in India have continued to worsen.
Due to the extreme heat causing reservoirs to evaporate, water shortages are becoming severe. It has been revealed that tens of millions of people among the total population of 1.4 billion suffer from drinking water shortages during the summer.
The World Weather Attribution (WWA), a climate research organization, warned in a report released on the 17th of last month that the likelihood of extreme heatwaves occurring in South Asia and Southeast Asia has increased more than 30 times compared to before.
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