India heat wave claims more than 600 lives

More than 600 people have died in a heat wave in southern India during the past week, a relief official in Andhra Pradesh state said today.

Temperatures that had soared to 49C (120F) along the steamy coastal belt on the Bay of Bengal have fallen in the last few days in most of the state.

But reports reaching the government from outlying districts raised the death toll to 622 as of last night, said DC Roshaiah, the state relief commissioner.

The highest number of deaths, 109, were reported in the West Godavari district, followed by 101 in Krishna district.

It has been an abnormally hot May in southern India, with dry winds blowing from the north-western deserts much earlier than usual. Temperatures have been 7% higher than normal for the month.

New Delhi and other parts of northern India were also baking in the heat, but southerners were hit the hardest.

Andhra Pradesh suffered heat waves in 1996 and 1998, but the state’s weather officials say it is simply due to wind patterns, not global warming or felling of trees.

But the state government has ordered a scientific committee to examine the causes of the heat wave, which has killed mostly the elderly, weak, and labourers who cannot afford to lose pay, such as farm workers, rickshaw pullers and village cleaners.