In much of India and Pakistan, April, May and June, the months leading up to the monsoon season, are the warmest months. It has often happened over the past decade that temperatures have started to rise earlier than usual, and so this year too: they have been rising since March, the hottest month in India for more than a century, and this week they have itself surpassed 45 °C in many places. The Indian government’s meteorological department predicts that the situation will worsen over the weekend and that there will be a significant drop in temperature from Monday alone due to the onset of rain.
The heat has already created various problems: for people’s health, for agricultural activities, for extinguishing fires and for generating energy, since air conditioning systems have risen at a time when the price of coal – the main fuel as an energy source in these countries – has increased is to be used more – was already higher than usual due to the international situation. The hardest-hit areas are in north-eastern India, particularly in the state of Rajasthan.
Much of the Indian and Pakistani population living in rural areas do not have home cooling systems and are therefore particularly vulnerable to heat stroke. Many people also turn to doctors for gastrointestinal distress caused by eating heat spoiled food. In the Indian state of Odisha, schools were closed for a week due to excessive heat; in West Bengal it was decided to move the summer holidays a few days earlier.
Though most people don’t have air conditioning in their homes, the increased energy demand to run existing air conditioners has put the power grids of many cities to the test, including New Delhi, where authorities fear power outages. India has not had such low reserves of coal for at least nine years, and dozens of passenger trains were canceled on Friday to prioritize transporting coal for power plants. On Friday, Indian capital Health and Energy Minister Satyendar Jain said many coal-fired power plants currently have enough fuel for less than a day’s electricity generation.
There is also a problem with landfills in New Delhi: in the past week, various fires have broken out in the garbage. According to the authorities, they are due to spontaneous combustion phenomena caused by high temperatures, which certainly favors their spread.
The Pakistani government’s meteorological department, on the other hand, fears that higher-than-usual temperatures could encourage sudden flooding, fueled by the partial melting of Himalayan glaciers. When something like this happened in the Indian state of Uttarakhand in 2013, more than 5,700 people died.
Finally, when it comes to crops, excessive heat can damage crops before harvest and prevent farmers and workers from working most of the day. Wheat in particular is at risk.
Since 2010, heat waves like the one in India have killed more than 6,500 people, and climate scientists say global warming could make things worse across Southeast Asia in the coming years. There have always been longer periods of higher than normal temperatures, but this part of the world is projected to become more frequent, longer and more dangerous.