Large parts of these two countries have been experiencing a record heat wave since the end of April, which the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has deemed to be “consistent” with climate change.
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Large parts of these two countries have been experiencing a record heat wave since the end of April, which the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has deemed to be “consistent” with climate change. Temperatures soared to 51º in Jacobabad, in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh, on May 14. The highest temperature in the world so far in 2022.
“
It’s like a fire burning all around commented Shafi Mohammad, a farm worker from a village near Jacobabad, where people struggle to find drinking water.
Nationally, temperatures are between 6 and 9º “
above normal (seasonal)”, underlined the Pakistan Meteorological Service (PMD), the thermometer displaying Friday around 40º in the capital Islamabad and the other major cities of Karachi (south), Lahore (east) and Peshawar (north-west).
The situation is expected to get worse
“
This year we went straight from winter to summer said PMD chief forecaster Zaheer Ahmad Babar.
Pakistan, he said, has been hit since 2015 by rising temperatures, particularly in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab (center). “
The intensity, duration and frequency (of these heat waves) increase “, he explained to AFP.
The situation is expected to worsen further in coming years in South Asia due to global warming, scientists have warned.
The flow of the Indus has been reduced by 65% this year”
due to lack of rain and snow said Punjab Irrigation Department spokesman Adnan Hassan. Taking its source in Tibet, this river crosses India then Pakistan before flowing into the Arabian Sea. Its basin provides 90% of Pakistan’s water supply, according to the UN.
The Pakistani press reported that sheep had died of sunstroke and dehydration in the Cholistan desert in Punjab, the most populous province and the breadbasket of Pakistan. “There is a real risk of shortage of food and crops this year in the country, if this lack of water is to persist “said Mr. Hassan.
“Like an oven”
The heat wave has also hit neighboring India, with temperatures reaching 48.1º C last Thursday in the Barmer district of Rajasthan province. “It was so hot today that I felt exhausted and sick when I came home from university by bus. The bus was like an oven,” said Suman Kumari, a 19-year-old student living in the Indian capital. The record heatwave leads to water shortages. Millions of inhabitants are concerned and water distributions are improvised, relays franceinfo.
While in Ahmedabad, a city in the west of the country, “at least 50 to 60 birds” dehydrated and fallen from the sky are treated “daily” at the Jivdaya Trust veterinary hospital, testifies to the Parisian Gira Shah, co-founder of the ‘hospital.
Pakistan, which has 220 million inhabitants, says it is only responsible for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is in 8th position among the countries most threatened by extreme weather phenomena, according to a study by the NGO Germanwatch. One of the risks identified from the continuation of global warming is that each region could experience more extreme climatic events in a differentiated way, sometimes combined, and with multiple consequences, indicates an article good buddywhich is currently running on social networks, relayed by informed scientists.
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