As two Indian states that are reeling under a heat wave reported scores of deaths in recent days, the government said it will take steps to prevent casualties from heatstroke and mitigate the impact of the searing temperatures.
In recent years, heat waves fueled by climate change have become more intense across large parts of India, say experts.
In the last week, more than 100 deaths have been reported in two of India’s most populous states in the north and east, but it remains unclear if they are linked to scorching temperatures above 42 degrees Celsius.
In Uttar Pradesh, authorities said they are investigating whether the deaths of 68 people admitted to a government hospital in Ballia district were linked to heat. The deaths occurred during five days between Thursday and Monday.
In Bihar, officials said that the sweltering heat had taken a toll of nine lives while many had been admitted to hospitals due to heat-related illnesses.
India’s health minister, Mansukh Mandaviya, said Tuesday that "arrangements will be made at every level for the protection of common life. We want to ensure no one dies of a heat stroke."
He said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will develop long term and short term plans to minimize the adverse impact of heat waves. The ICMR is India’s leading clinical research agency.
Officials are also being sent to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to help the two states with public health response measures. Authorities in the two states have issued advisories asking elderly people and those suffering from various health conditions to stay indoors during the daytime.
Experts warn that the searing temperatures experienced across large swathes of India in the main summer months of April to May pose huge health hazards to millions of people in the country of 1.4 billion people.
Most of the population does not have access to air conditioning. In the country’s densely packed cities, concrete buildings and roads trap heat, exacerbating the impact of high temperatures.
The most vulnerable are millions of low-income people who work outdoors – construction labor, street vendors or rickshaw pullers in urban areas and agricultural labor in its vast rural areas. India has no laws restricting work in the afternoon hours.
Experts say heatwaves have a severe impact on human health. “About 400 million people are at the bottom of the pyramid and their health and nutrition conditions are not appropriate to withstand another level of climatic conditions that is detrimental to health. These are vulnerable populations,” points out Anjal Prakash, clinical associate professor and research director at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy.
He points out that blaming heat for deaths is not always easy because scorching temperatures often impact people with existing health conditions.
There are question marks over the cause of the spike in deaths in recent days. While a local health official in Uttar Pradesh told reporters last Friday that heat may have been a factor in the deaths of 25 people, the state’s health minister, Brajesh Pathak, later called it a “careless statement” given without “proper information” and said authorities are probing the cause of the deaths. Officials said most of those who died were elderly people suffering from existing ailments.
In April, 11 people died from heatstroke after attending an outdoor ceremony under a blazing sun in Maharashtra state.
Experts say that the scorching heat could worsen in coming years as a warming planet drives an increase in disasters ranging from cyclones, heatwaves to floods.
The “IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports have noted the rise in heatwave conditions in southern Asia and India has been one of the hotspot regions for heatwave conditions,” says Prakash, who is an IPCC author. “There has been an increase in both frequency and duration of heatwaves during the last 10 to 15 years and studies suggest that temperatures will continue to rise as combating global warming still remains a challenge.”
