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Over the past several days, at least 96 people have died in two of India’s most populous states, according to officials, as large areas of the nation struggle with a brutal heatwave.
Authorities issued warnings to citizens over 60 and those suffering from various illnesses to stay indoors during the daytime in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and eastern Bihar, where the deaths occurred.
The Ballia area, around 300 kilometres (200 miles) southeast of Lucknow, the state capital, recorded 54 fatalities in all. Authorities discovered that the majority of people who died were older than 60 and had prior medical issues, which the extreme heat may have made worse.
According to S. K. Yadav, a medical officer in Ballia, 300 patients with a variety of illnesses made admissions to the district hospital over the course of the last three days that were made worse by the heat.
Due to the seriousness of the situation, authorities in Ballia cancelled leave requests for medical staff members and added hospital beds in the emergency ward to handle the surge of patients.
According to officials, the majority of the admitted patients are above the age of 60 and display symptoms including a high temperature, vomiting, diarrhoea, difficulty breathing, and heart-related problems.
R.S. Pathak, a resident of Ballia who buried his father on Saturday, claimed that while caring for his father, he noticed an increase in the number of patients at the hospital’s emergency room.
“In Ballia, this has never happened. I have never witnessed such a big number of heat-related fatalities,” he remarked. “People are afraid to go outside. Most of the markets and highways are desolate.
Ballia is currently dealing with the stifling heat, as are central and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The district recorded a maximum temperature of 43 degrees Celsius on Sunday, five degrees above average. The impact of the heat was exacerbated by the relative humidity, which was measured at 25%.
Temperatures in the state are currently above average, according to Atul Kumar Singh, a scientist with the India Meteorological Department, or IMD. He continued, “No relief is expected in the next 24 hours.”
According to a warning from the IMD, there will be a heatwave in several areas of Uttar Pradesh through June 19.
Brijesh Pathak, the state’s minister of health, announced that a probe into the deaths of “so many people” in Ballia has been launched.
42 people have died in the previous two days in eastern Bihar as a result of the intense heat that has blanketed parts of the state. 35 of the fatalities were in two hospitals in Patna, the state capital, with more than 200 patients receiving treatment for diarrhoea and vomiting.
On Saturday, Patna’s high temperature was 44.7 degrees Celsius.
In most of India, the primary summer months of April, May, and June are often the hottest before monsoon rains usher in lower temperatures.
But during the previous ten years, temperatures have increased. The nation typically has acute water shortages during heat waves, with tens of millions of its 1.4 billion residents lacking access to flowing water.
A scorching heat wave that hit areas of South Asia in April was made at least 30 times more likely by climate change, according to a study by World Weather Attribution, an academic organisation that investigates the cause of high heat.
13 people died in April as a result of the heat at a government function in Mumbai, the financial hub of India, and several governments decided to close all schools for a week.
