Pakistan, India suffer from extreme heat

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 Temperatures in Pakistan and India have recently risen to unprecedented levels, leading to severe water and electricity shortages.



For the past few weeks, Nazeer Ahmed has been living in one of the hottest places on Earth. As a devastating heatwave swept through India and Pakistan, his home in Turbat, in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, experienced continuous temperatures reaching nearly 50 degrees Celsius unprecedented for this time of year. .


Local people can only go out to work at night and are at risk of facing severe water and electricity shortages.


Ahmed fears things will get worse. Where he lives, in 2021, the highest temperature recorded in May is 54 degrees Celsius, the temperature is too fierce. This year, Ahmed said he feels the weather is even hotter. "Last week in Turbat was incredibly hot. It wasn't like April," he said.


This terrible heatwave has exacerbated massive energy shortages across India and Pakistan.


Turbat, a city of about 200,000 residents, currently has almost no electricity to use, meaning air conditioners and refrigerators cannot function. "We are living in hell," said Ahmed.


This is a common story across the subcontinent, where the realities of climate change are being felt by more than 1.5 billion people as scorching summer temperatures arrive 2 months early and monsoons a few months away. end.


Northwest and central India experienced their hottest April in 122 years, while Jacobabad, a city in Pakistan's Sindh province, experienced temperatures of up to 49 degrees Celsius on April 30, one of the hottest. The highest April temperature ever recorded in the world.


Destruction of crops, crops


The heat wave has had a devastating effect on crops, including wheat and various fruits and vegetables.


In India, wheat production has dropped by as much as 50% in some of the regions hardest hit by extreme temperatures, exacerbating fears of a global shortage following Russia's military campaign. situation in Ukraine, which has had a severe impact on supply.


In the Mastung district of Balochistan, famous for its apple and peach orchards, crops have been severely damaged.


Farmer Haji Ghulam Sarwar Shahwani watched with anguish as his apple trees flowered a month earlier, and then despaired as the flowers wilted and died in the unseasonal dry heat, nearly killing his entire crop. . Farmers in the area also spoke of the "drastic" impact on their wheat crops, while the area also recently suffered an 18-hour-a-day power cut.


"This is the first time that the weather has devastated our crops like this in this area. We don't know what to do and there is no government help. The farming has decreased," said Shahwani. People have lost billions of dollars because of this weather. We can't buy anything."


Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's climate change minister, said the country was facing a "crisis" due to climate emergencies. The heat, she warned, is causing the glaciers in the north of the country to melt at an unprecedented rate and thousands of people are at risk of flooding.


She also says that hot temperatures affect not only the plants but also the water supply. "Reservoirs have dried up. Our big dams are now dead and water is scarce," she said.


According to her, this heat wave is a wake-up call for the international community.


Experts say the scorching heat being felt across the subcontinent could be a warning of more dire conditions to come next summer.


Abhiyant Tiwari, assistant professional program manager at the Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management, said "extreme, frequent and prolonged heatwaves are no longer a risk in the future. "It's here already and It's inevitable."


The World Meteorological Organization said in a statement that temperatures in India and Pakistan were "in line with what we would expect in a changing climate. Heatwaves were more frequent, intense and intense. and started earlier than before".


According to the Indian Meteorological Department, Bikaner was the hottest place in the country over the weekend with a temperature of 47.1 degrees Celsius. But in some areas of northwest India, satellite images captured surface temperature has exceeded 60 degrees Celsius, which is unprecedented for this time of year.


High temperatures put huge pressure on electricity demand in both India and Pakistan, where people have endured hours of power cuts amid the intense heat. On April 29, peak electricity demand in India hit an all-time high of 207,111MW, according to government data.


India is facing its worst power shortage in six decades.


Power cuts of up to eight hours have been imposed in states including Jharkhand, Haryana, Bihar, Punjab and Maharashtra as domestic coal supplies plummeted and import coal prices skyrocketed.


In an effort to speed up coal transportation across the country, Indian Railways canceled more than 600 passenger and postal trains to make room for transporting coal to power plants.

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