Warning of fire risk as heatwave hits India
High temperatures follow hottest March in 122 years, sweeping across South Asia
India is getting too hot too early, raising the risk of fires, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned, as a heatwave gripped much of the country and a landfill site burned on the capital’s outskirts.
“Temperatures are rising rapidly in the country, and rising much earlier than usual,” Modi told heads of India’s state governments in an online conference.
The extreme heat has swept across large areas of India and Pakistan this week and follows the hottest March since the India Meteorological Department began keeping records 122 years ago. More than a billion people are at risk of heat-related health effects, scientists said.
In New Delhi, temperatures have soared past 40 degrees Celsius for several days and are forecast to linger around 44 degrees until Sunday, with peak summer heat still to come before monsoon rains arrive in June.
“We are seeing increasing incidents of fires in various places – in jungles, important buildings and in hospitals – in the past few days,” Modi said. He asked states to conduct fire-safety audits for hospitals. Dozens die every year in fires at hospitals and factories, mainly because of illegal construction and lax safety standards.
Fires in Delhi’s garbage dumps also contribute to the toxic air in the world’s most polluted capital.
As Modi spoke on Wednesday, firefighters were struggling to extinguish a blaze at the Bhalswa landfill site, a hillock rising above the northwestern edge of the city.
Fumes from the burning waste forced a nearby school to close on Tuesday. The cause of the fire was under investigation.
Among the worst hit have been the typically humid eastern Indian states, which saw temperatures above 43 degrees on Wednesday.
“Rarely it happens that nearly the whole country … is reeling under a heatwave,” said hydroclimatologist Arpita Mondal at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, on the coast of Maharashtra, where she said the heat was “unbearable”.
Climate change was “beyond doubt” a contributing factor to the weather extremes, Mondal said.
In February, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of India’s vulnerabilities to extreme heat. For example, at 1.5 degrees of warming above pre-industrial temperatures, the West Bengal capital of Kolkata could once a year see conditions match that of the 2015 heatwave, when temperatures hit 44 degrees and thousands died across the country.
Mondal’s research has found urban pollution may also play a role, with black carbon and dust absorbing sunlight and leading to greater heating in India’s cities.