About 600 people have died in recent days as a result of the heat in Pakistan. There were especially many casualties in Karachi, the country’s largest city. The air temperature in the city exceeded 40°C, but due to high humidity the heat was tolerated at 49-50°C, the BBC reports.
Faisal Edhi, head of the Edhi Foundation, which runs the country’s largest ambulance service, said its vehicles had delivered dozens of bodies of heatstroke victims to morgues earlier in the week. Every day, 30 to 40 bodies are received at the Karachi city mortuary. But over the past six days, that number has risen to 568. He also noted that “most of the deaths were from poor areas of the city.”
Hundreds of people are seeking medical help for heat stroke, but not all of them make it to hospital. The situation is made worse by power outages in Karachi, which means air conditioners and fans, the only way to escape the heat, are regularly shut down.
Authorities have opened special centres in the hope of providing assistance to people suffering from the heat.