Intense Heatwave Kills Over 500 in Pakistan
KABUL: (Middle East Press) Intense heatwave across Pakistan has claimed the lives of over 570 people in the country with casualty figures in the largest city of Karachi and other districts of the southern province of Sindh surpassing the 400 mark.
The Pakistani health officials announced the latest casualty counts late noted that most of the fatalities occurred in Karachi, which has experienced temperatures as high as 45°C (113°F) in recent days, just short of an all-time high of 47°C (116°F), recorded in June 1979.
According to officials, all the deaths had occurred since Saturday evening.
Dr. Seemin Jamali, the head of the emergency department at the state-run Jinnah Hospital said that more than 100 people, many of them elderly, had died of heat stroke.
The high temperatures were further complicated by frequent power outages, sparking protests in several parts of Karachi, a populous city of over 20 million.
Electricity cuts also crippled Karachi’s water supply system, hampering the pumping of millions of gallons of water to consumers, the state-run water utility announced as cited in local press reports.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was cited by his office staff as warning electric supply companies that he would not tolerate power outages during the fasting month of Ramadan.
