Pakistan has issued a heat warning after the hottest March in 61 years while parts of India’s neighboring schools are closed and roads are empty as a strong wave on Friday showed no signs of slowing down.
Pakistan’s Minister of Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, has called on provincial governments to take precautionary measures to control temperatures, reaching a maximum of 47 degrees Celsius (116.6 Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country. South Asia, especially India and Pakistan, are facing what has been a historic wave. It started in early April and continues to leave people breathless in whatever shade they find, ”Rehman said in a statement.
Temperatures were predicted to rise by 6 to 8 degrees Celsius above normal temperatures after the hottest March in history since 1961, he said. the onset of the worst summer in climate change. For the first time in decades, Pakistan went from winter to summer without the spring season, Rehman said. The government has also instructed provincial disaster management authorities to immediately prepare for the risk of flash floods in the northern and mountainous regions due to rapid melting of snow, Rehman said.
The plateau of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karkoram Mountains melted rapidly, forming thousands of glaciers in northern Pakistan, about 30 of which were suddenly threatened by catastrophic floods, the Department of Climate Change said, adding an estimated 7 million people at risk. A senior scientist at the Indian Meteorological Department said on Friday temperatures would continue for at least the next three days, but temperatures would drop after the arrival of heavy rains, which were expected in some parts in May.
Heatwave’s health problems were more serious than the expected fourth wave of COVID-19, Indian doctors said. president of the Ahmedabad Medical Association in the western Indian state of Gujarat. He said 60-70% of patients were school children complaining of vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, weakness and other symptoms.
Roads have been abandoned in Bhubaneshwar, India’s eastern province of Odisha, where schools are closed, while neighboring West Bengal continues school holidays for a few days.
In Pakistan, leading to the religious holiday of Eid reduced extreme heat and power outages as most people refrained from eating food and drinking water on the afternoon of the holy month of Ramadan. Increased demand for electricity from rising temperatures combined with fuel shortages and infrastructure problems is putting pressure on Pakistan’s electricity system, leading to a common power outage, known as power outages.
Residents in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa say that sometimes the electricity goes out for between 10 and 14 hours a day, leaving a few things to cool down. ” Salam Khan, owner of a shoe brand in the northern city of Peshawar.Khan said the expected heat caused the expected increase in shoe sales before Eid as many people stayed at home due to extreme heat while their stores struggled during the power outage.
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