For a month now, temperatures in New Delhi and other cities in the north have been approaching 50 degrees. Despite the precautionary measures adopted by the government, the extreme heat has already claimed dozens of lives in India.
The death toll has risen to 61 from the heatwave striking India, particularly the north-central area. The majority of victims were over sixty years old; they all lived in the districts of Aurangabad, Gaya and Nawada in the state of Bihar, in the northeast of the country. This was confirmed by the principal secretary of the disaster management department, Pratyaya Amrit.
The Asian nation has been in the grip of the heat for more than thirty days; it is one of the longest heatwaves in the country's history. On 10 June the capital New Delhi recorded 48 degrees: a temperature that high had never before been recorded in that month. In the cities of Churu, Allahabad and Banda temperatures also reached record levels, with peaks above 50 degrees in the first. Farmers are forced to rise very early in the morning to avoid the unbearable heat; many have nonetheless abandoned their fields and livestock. Water is increasingly scarce in rural areas.
"Heatwaves are becoming more and more frequent and intense," Raghavan Krishnan of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology told CNN. The number of states affected by the phenomenon has increased from 9 in 2015 to 19 in 2018, and this year it is expected to reach 23. Fortunately, the mortality rate has fallen over time with the adoption of precautionary measures such as the opening of shelters for the homeless and the provision of kiosks where people can stock up on drinking water; many buildings have been repainted white to counter the absorption of solar rays, and the working hours of government employees have been rethought to avoid the hottest parts of the day.
However, what the country truly needs is to stop using fossil fuels, which are responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that 40 per cent of domestic electricity demand will need to be met by renewable sources by 2030, through the expansion of solar and wind power plants. The population, however, does not have much time to spare.