JAKARTA - For one day in late April, India dominated the list of the 50 hottest cities in the world. Not one or two cities. The entire list, from first to 50th, is in the country.
Citing The Independent, Wednesday, May 13, the air quality monitoring platform AQI called the incident on April 27 "without modern precedent" and "abnormal".
"This is not a normal April," said AQI.
The average peak temperature in the 50 cities reached 44.7 degrees Celsius. Banda, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, recorded the highest temperature in the world that day, namely 46.2 degrees Celsius.
Even Solapur, the city with the lowest temperature on the list, still recorded 41.9 degrees Celsius. AQI says that figure will be considered a public health emergency in many European regions.
Most of the hottest cities are in the Indian inland heat belt, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. Night temperatures are also high, making it difficult for the body to recover after being hit by the heat throughout the day.
Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera called the heat wave one of the worst for April. He said dozens, maybe even hundreds, of April heat records have been broken.
Scientists are linking the increasingly heavy extreme heat to the climate crisis. Summers in India are coming earlier and more intense. A number of experts warn that by 2050 some parts of India could face heat that exceeds the safe limit of the human body.
AQI calls this condition an emergency health signal. When many cities record an average temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius, the risk of heat-related illness can turn into a mass threat.
Concerns are growing because next summer could be even worse. India is also facing fuel shortages due to supply chain disruptions triggered by the US-Israeli war against Iran. In fact, air conditioning needs usually soar during heat waves.
The Indian Meteorological Department also predicts this year's monsoon rains to be below average. This means that the risk of drought may increase.
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