| Situation Update No. 13 Ref.no.: HT-20160405-52798-IND
Situation Update No. 13
On 2016-04-24 at 02:45:54 [UTC]
Event: Heat Wave
Location: States of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha MultiStates India
Number of Deads: 160 person(s)
Number of Injured: 0 person(s)
Number of Evacuated: 0 person(s)
Number of Infected: 0 person(s)
Situation: The desperate wails rend the still evening air that is suffocatingly warm, even at sunset. A crush of people has gathered around the body of Katamaiah, laid on the ground in front of his hut; his wife is weeping. A farm labourer working for the daily wage of Rs 200 in Sulthanpet village in Andhra Pradesh's Ananthapuram district, Katamaiah had left for work at 7 in the morning, as was his habit. A few hours later, the 55-year-old with no pre-existing medical condition collapsed on the field and died while being taken to the nearest hospital in the district capital. Neighbours say he was a victim of the relentless heat the region has been captive to. A few kilometres away, in Narasapuram village, are the widows of two others felled by the heat, part of the official list of 37 heatstroke deaths reported in Ananthapuram so far. Karupuramu Gopal and his wife sold plastic pots and other trinkets to make ends meet, earning between Rs 200 and Rs 300 a day. On returning from work in the afternoon, 10 days ago, Gopal began complaining of discomfort and vomited. Though he was taken to a private clinic where he was given a saline drip, he did not make it. "He asked for some water around 11 at night, took a long breath and passed away," says his wife, Devi. At the home of Venkataiah, his wife is too exhausted and grief-stricken to talk. His nephew, Goutham Naidu, says the farmer had spent his last three days at a religious festival, leaving in the morning and returning only at sunset. The night before he passed away, he had felt listless and vomited. His nephew was taking him to a hospital the next day, when he died. Three weeks into April and Ananthapuram is burning under an intolerable heat wave with daily temperatures touching 44 degrees Celsius, making it one of the hottest places in the country, according to private weather forecaster Skymet. Step out around 11 am and you feel you are being physically assaulted by the heat, a steady stream of scorching blows raining all over your body. While it is unsurprising that people are collapsing in this heat, the tragedy lies in the fact that if adequate precautions are taken, heatstroke deaths like Gopal's and Venkataiah's are preventable, according to experts, unlike in other natural calamities such as earthquakes and floods. The state government says it has launched a campaign to spread awareness on the heat wave, has set up over 8,000 outlets providing free drinking water, known as "chalivendram" in Telugu, and distributed over 7 lakh oral rehydration solution (ORS) packets. |
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