Because of the country’s current heatwave, an Indian court has urged the government to declare a national emergency, citing weeks of harsh weather that have claimed hundreds of lives.
With temperatures in some Indian cities scorching far beyond 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit), the country is experiencing a crippling heatwave.
Although the number of deaths linked to the current heatwave has not been released nationally, the eastern state of Bihar reported on Friday that at least 14 people had “succumbed to death due to heat stroke” the day before due to extremely high temperatures.
The High Court in the western state of Rajasthan, which has suffered through some of the hottest weather in recent days, said authorities had failed to take appropriate steps to protect the public from the heat.
“Due to extreme weather conditions in the form of (the) heatwave, hundreds of people have lost their lives this month,” the court said Thursday, before the deaths in Bihar were announced.
“We do not have a planet B which we can move onto… If we do not take strict action now, we will lose the chance of seeing our future generations flourish forever.”
The state government was ordered by the court to establish compensation funds for the family membersof anyone who passes away from heat-related illnesses.Declaring the current heatwave and similar occurrences in the future “national calamities” would enable the mobilization of emergency relief in a way akin to that of floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters.
According to a news statement from the state’s disaster management office, ten poll workers who were getting ready for the last day of voting in India’s six-week election on Saturday were among the dead in Bihar.
