Heatwave Claims 25 Lives In 2 Months In Maha, Highest Deaths In Vidarbha

Mumbai: At least 25 people have died due to the heatwave in Maharashtra in two months which is the highest since 2016, state Health Department’s Surveillance Officer Dr Pradeep Awate said.

Dr Pradeep Awate, monitoring officer of the state health department, said that with the temperature reaching record highs in the last 100 years, Maharashtra has witnessed the highest number of 25 deaths due to heat, and many people are suffering.

“Chandrapur is one of the global hotspots, where the temperature is around 46 degrees Celsius,” Awate told IANS.

Urging people to exercise extreme caution, he said, “However, the IMD has said that there may be some respite from the heat in the next few days as many parts of the state may receive pre-monsoon rains.”

Temperatures have been hovering between 35 and 46 degrees over large parts of the state since late March, especially in the northern and central parts of the state, apart from the traditional hotspots of Marathwada and Vidarbha, boiling between 40 degrees Celsius and 46 degrees Celsius. Used to be.

Of the 25 heatwave fatalities, 15 have been reported from Vidarbha, including 11 in Nagpur, three in Akola and one in Amravati districts, six from Marathwada, and two from Jalna and one each in Parbhani, Hingoli, Osmanabad and Aurangabad and four deaths from Jalgaon in North Maharashtra.

This is the highest toll due to heatwaves in the state in the past seven years, Awate said, with 19 deaths in 2016, two in 2018 and nine in 2019, reaching 25 in 2022.

All deaths are analyzed by the respective District Health Committee on the basis of symptoms of the victim, exposure to heat, temperature-humidity level of the last 72 hours where the cause of death is due to heatwave or heat-stroke. ,

Dr Awte said that before the onset of summer, the health department was ready with its health contingency plan in February and it monitors the daily temperature from the IMD which is passed on to the districts for further remedial measures.

The heatwave has increased the demand for power to its highest ever, at 28,276 MW – and the state reeled under long hours of load-shedding for two weeks till normal supply was restored on 28 April, according to Energy Minister Dr Nitin Raut.

Follow us on Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook for the latest updates and interesting stories.