Three sunstroke deaths in Maharashtra are the first heat casualties of 2017

In what might be the first heat casualties of 2017, the Maharashtra government has announced the deaths of three people due to sunstroke in the last three days. The India Meteorological Department has been issuing heat wave warnings across northern, western and central regions of India, particularly in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and northern Maharashtra.

The three people were Balchanda Chaudhari from Jalgaon, Rupatai Missal from Beed and Prasanna Birajdar from Solapur, according to information from Dr Mukund Diggikar, joint director of the Directorate of Health Services in Maharashtra. The state has a Heat Action Plan formulated last year, Diggikar said. This will be the first year of implementation of the plan.

The IMD however cautioned that technically there had been no heat wave in these districts, though the temperatures recorded there had been higher than usual.

“We have not had any heat waves in Maharashtra so far, though we have approached the condition,” said VK Rajeev, IMD director in Mumbai. “Though the temperatures were high, it does not satisfy the technical conditions of a heat wave. Our job is merely to warn of the possibility of heat waves.”

Temperatures have to be four to five degrees above normal when the normal maximum temperature at a station is more than 40 degrees Celsius, or five to six degrees above normal when the normal maximum is less than 40 degrees.

Sizzling temperature

An IMD press note said that temperatures were five degrees Celsius over normal in most places in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, West Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi. Higher temperatures were also recorded in many places in east Rajasthan and in Madhya Pradesh, and at isolated places in south Uttar Pradesh, west Vidarbha and north Odisha. New Delhi recorded temperatures seven degrees above normal.

The highest temperature in India on March 29 was at Akola at 44.1 degrees Celsius. Nagpur, also in Vidarbha in eastern Maharashtra, recorded a temperature of 43 degrees Celsius.

“Nagpur has not crossed 41 degrees in March for 10 years,” said AD Tathe, director of the Nagpur Regional Meteorological Centre which records weather for central India. “Yet in the last month, it has crossed 41 degrees four times. This heat spell has been quite long and we are still expecting temperatures in the range of 41 to 42 degrees on Thursday.”

April, he said, was an entirely different matter, when temperatures remain above 41 degrees to 42 degrees, and averages would then be adjusted accordingly.

The current heat spell began in northern and western India and has been moving southwards over the last week due to a high-pressure anticyclone in Madhya Pradesh that has led to hot winds flowing in from particularly dry places, Tathe explained.

Other factors include a dry, cloudless sky allowing more radiation from the sun to strike the earth’s surface and the fact that the sun is now directly above the Tropic of Cancer, a latitude which passes through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.

South on alert

The heat wave might be set to abate at least in the northern regions, even as it intensifies in the south and east, with Telangana and Andhra Pradesh expected to see temperatures of 47 degrees Celsius in the next two weeks.

“We issued a heat warning to only north Gujarat on Thursday,” said Manorama Mohanty, IMD officer in Ahmedabad. The highest temperature in Gujarat was 43.4 degrees in Deesa, near the Rajasthan border. On Monday, Ahmedabad recorded a temperature of 42.8 degrees – the highest temperature recorded in that city since 2010, when it touched 43 degrees.

“This is not an abnormal temperature for March in Gujarat,” Mohanty added. “There is usually one heat wave in March and two to three spells in April and May.”

At least 700 people died due to severe heat waves in the country last year, which was the hottest year ever to be recorded both in India and across the world. Despite the annually repeating hazard, only Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha and Telangana have Heat Wave Action Plans that are at least somewhat active, The Hindu reported on Tuesday. The IMD and National Disaster Management Authority are in talks with other states to implement relief plans.

Nagpur and Bhubaneshwar are among the few Indian cities to have city-level heat action plans. The cities have set up cool-air shelters for people working in the sun all day, such as construction workers and traffic police, to rest during the hottest afternoon hours.