India's Record-Nudging Heatwave Combining With Staggering Pollution, Vanishing Water Supplies

[hatrack]

I interviewed veteran Journalist Keith Schneider last summer after he had just returned from an extended visit to Asia, and India.

NEW DELHI — When the temperature topped 120 degrees (49 Celsius), residents of the northern Indian city of Churu stopped going outside and authorities started hosing down the baking streets with water. Churu — home to more than 100,000 people — has been the hottest place in India in recent days, part of a summer heat wave suffocating most of the country as temperatures rise above normal even for this sweltering time of year.

According to weather website El Dorado on Wednesday, five of the hottest 15 places on the planet over the previous 24 hours were in India or neighboring Pakistan. In Churu, the mercury hit 118 degrees, down from 122 degrees on Monday. That temperature is just shy of India’s all-time high, recorded in 2016.

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Nearly the whole country remained under a heat-wave warning Wednesday, with severe warnings for a swath of north and central India, including the states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Earlier this week, the Health Ministry issued an advisory with do’s and don’ts for staying safe in rising temperatures. They included avoiding the sun between noon and 3 p.m. and refraining from drinking alcohol, tea and coffee. The National Disaster Management Authority weighed in with its own tips: Cover your head, cross-ventilate your room and try sleeping under a slightly wet sheet.

EDIT

Link to tweet

EDIT


https://climatecrocks.com/2019/06/06/in-india-horrid-heat-wave/#more-55926