Global Courant
UTTAR PRADESH – At a cremation ground on the banks of the Ganges River in Ballia, a district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Chief Priest Pappu Pandey said he had never experienced anything like it in recent weeks.
One of his tasks is counting bodies. As a brutal combination of extreme heat and punishing humidity before the monsoon blanketed the region, the ground became suffocated by pyres.
He said the death toll doubled to nearly 50 a day at the height of the heat wave in mid-June — numbers he hasn’t seen in 20 years at the location outside of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It was like a divine curse,” he said, describing the deadly heat wave.
June’s sweltering weather, where the mercury rose to 46 degrees Celsius, is likely just a taste of things to come.
Scientists estimate that climate change has increased the likelihood of extreme heat in India by 30 times, while the World Bank has indicated that India is likely to be one of the first places in the world where heat waves exceed the human survival threshold.
The many anecdotal reports of a spike in deaths among the most vulnerable in society have increased concerns about both central and local government preparations.
Beyond the human cost, failing to properly address the challenges of new summer heat puts India’s robust economy at risk.
The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that lost labor in areas exposed to extreme heat, such as construction and agriculture, could jeopardize up to 4.5 percent of India’s gross domestic product by 2030.
“I have never seen such heat in my entire life,” said 91-year-old CP Thakur, a doctor and former health minister of the country. “It is alarming that so many deaths have occurred.”
How many people have died from the extreme heat is controversial.
Add in estimates from local nonprofits and medical officials not authorized to speak to the media, and you quickly run into the hundreds.
Ask government representatives, and the number dwindles to just a handful.
