{"id":190202,"date":"2019-06-20T06:26:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T06:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=190202"},"modified":"2019-06-23T08:22:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T08:22:55","slug":"india-heatwave-rain-brings-respite-for-some-but-death-toll-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=190202","title":{"rendered":"India heatwave: rain brings respite for some but death toll rises"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Amrit Dillon \u2013 The Guardian June 19, 2019<\/h1>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Indian-heatwave.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-190204\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Indian-heatwave-1024x614.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"324\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Indian-heatwave-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Indian-heatwave-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Indian-heatwave-768x461.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Indian-heatwave.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Weekend showers provided a much-needed but partial respite to parts of <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/india\">India<\/a> sweltering in a brutal heatwave.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In Bihar, however, one of the poorest areas of the country, 49 people died on Saturday in just 24 hours.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">With temperatures in Bihar hovering consistently at around 45C (113F), hospitals were inundated with people suffering from heatstroke. The death toll has since risen to at least 60 and, with many heatstroke victims still in hospital, is expected to rise further. Schools in Bihar will remain closed until Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, people have been advised to stay indoors between 11am and 4pm. Earlier this month, four elderly passengers on board the Kerala Express train died of suffocation<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The heatwave, one of the longest on record, has been scorching large parts of north and central India with temperatures of more than 40C. June is always a difficult month in northern India because the heat builds up inexorably as a prelude to the monsoon, which normally arrives at the end of the month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">This is when air conditioners almost cease to be effective and even normally frisky street dogs lie prone on the pavement all day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But this year the temperatures have been unusually high even for June, touching 48C near the airport in Delhi last week \u2013 the hottest June day in the Indian capital on record \u2013 and above 50C in Rajasthan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/jun\/12\/indian-villages-lie-empty-as-drought-forces-thousands-to-flee\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Tens of thousands of people in drought-affected villages<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in north India have left their homes because they do not have any drinking water either for themselves or for their cattle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Even in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the Himalayas, where many Indians go to escape the summer heat, the temperature has reached 39C.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The rush to the higher ground resulted in huge traffic jams at the weekend that snaked around the mountains. People had to sleep in their cars because towns such as Shimla and Nainital \u2013 known as hill stations from the days of the British Raj \u2013 had no spare hotel rooms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cIt was unbelievable. The hills were alive and heaving with cars and SUVs and a journey that should take one hour took five,\u201d said Sumith Verma, a Nainital resident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">About two-thirds of the country has been affected by the blistering heat, which looks set to become the longest heatwave the country has ever experienced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But Sunday brought light showers to New Delhi and the temperature dipped to around 36C. The skies remained overcast on Monday. Other parts of north and western India \u2013 Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Maharashtra \u2013 also had some rain over the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">By now the monsoon should have reached parts of central India but is lagging behind schedule. So far, the monsoon has hit only Karnataka and Kerala in the south.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/jun\/17\/india-heatwave-rain-brings-respite-for-some-but-death-toll-rises\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustained highs of 48C to 50C have left scores dead and prompted warnings to stay inside between 11AM and 4PM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ClimateGate"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190224,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190202\/revisions\/190224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}