India heatwave death toll rises as awareness campaigns launch

Southern India has borne the brunt of the sudden spell of hot, dry weather. So far more than 1,000 people have died in the state of Andhra Pradesh, more than double the total number of heat-related deaths last summer, authorities said.

"This is the highest death toll due to heatwave ever in the state,” said Tulasi Rani, the special commissioner for disaster management in Andhra Pradesh. "Last year around 447 people died due to heat. This year the heatwave is continuing for a longer period than in previous years.”

Rani said temperatures were two to five degrees higher than the seasonal average.

The death toll in neighbouring Telangana, where temperatures hit 48C (118F) over the weekend, stood at 340.

Dr T Padmaja, the medical and health officer in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, one of the worst affected areas, said leave had been cancelled for doctors.

Local authorities across India have launched intensive awareness campaigns, asking people to stay indoors between 1pm and 4pm and advising them to wear broad-brimmed hats and light-coloured cotton clothes, use umbrellas and drink lots of fluid.

Among the most vulnerable are older people and poorer people, many of whom live in slums or farm huts with no access to air conditioners or sometimes even trees which could cast shade.

Many victims were day labourers, who need to work to eat. "If I don’t work due to the heat, how will my family survive?” said Mahalakshmi, who earns a 200 rupees (£2) a day as a construction labourer in the southern city of Nizamabad, Telangana state.

The homeless were also badly hit. Near one shelter in Delhi, dozens of men tried to keep cool in the shade of nearby trees. Others begged from the drivers of vehicles waiting at nearby traffic lights. "If they give me anything I spend it on water at the moment not food,” said Deepak Ram Lal, 42.

The capital’s air conditioned metro and shopping malls have become much-sought-after havens from the heat, while power cuts in residential areas were frequent as the grid struggled to cope with the demand from millions of air conditioners.

Residents of Gurgaon – a high-rise satellite city, home to many of the Delhi’s workers – experienced power cuts of up to 10 hours a day. "Nothing is working – even after taking half a dozen baths a day, you can’t beat the heat,” shop owner Manish Singh said. "It’s worse than previous years; we hardly get any electricity and the air conditioners become useless.”