INDIA: The death toll in the heatwave affecting southern India for the past fortnight rose to over 800 yesterday with an additional 158 persons succumbing to sunstroke and dehydration at the weekend, officials said. Rahul Bedi reports from New Delhi.
Temperatures across Andhra Pradesh state rose as high as 47.9 degrees, and the provincial relief commissioner, Mr D.C. Rosaiah, said the situation continued to be grim, with the weather office renewing the severe heatwave warning for the next 48 hours.
Last year a heatwave killed more than 1,000 people in the state, most of them elderly, which in some regions touched 50 degrees.
Officials said hundreds of people were being treated for dehydration, high fevers and vomiting at hospitals in 20 of the state's 23 districts that have had dry hot winds since mid-May.
And although the monsoon rains are scheduled to break some time this week over Kerala state farther south, officials said it would take time for them to travel north to Andhra and bring badly needed relief from the searing heat.
"The exposure to intense heat and unclean drinking water is playing havoc with people's lives," said Dr Dasrath, the medical superintendent of a government-run hospital in Bhongir, 50km north-east of the state capital, Hyderabad.
Patients crowded the government hospital in nearby Ramanpet, with many lying on beds in the corridors.
"We have run out of fluids to administer to these patients," Dr Kotaiah Naik said. "We have been receiving at least 40 patients with sunstroke every day for the past 15 days," he added.