BHUBANESWAR: At least eight people have died of suspected sun stroke in India’s eastern state of Odisha in the last three days, the government said on Monday, with the national weather department predicting more hot weather in parts of the state this week.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) declares a heat wave when the temperature of a region is 4.5 degrees Celsius (40.1°F) to 6.4 C higher than normal. Odisha’s capital city of Bhubaneswar recorded a maximum temperature of 39 C on Monday.
A total of 159 suspected sun stroke deaths have been reported in Odisha this summer, the state emergency operation center said on Monday, adding that sun stroke was confirmed as the cause of death in 41 cases.
“Seventy-three cases (of suspected sun stroke) are under inquiry at district level,” the center’s statement said.
India and several other parts of Asia have experienced an unusually hot summer — a trend scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change — and the weather department has forecast heat wave conditions will continue in parts of north and east India in the coming days.
The country saw nearly 25,000 cases and 56 fatalities from suspected heat stroke from March to May, local media reported last week.
The capital Delhi recorded its highest ever temperature at 49.9 C in some places earlier this month, and it has been grappling with a water shortage as maximum temperatures continue to hover around 44 C.
The country held national elections from April to June amid the heat, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi securing a third term with a diminished majority, making his BJP dependent on other parties to form a government.
The early arrival of monsoon rains, which hit southern Kerala state on May 30 and have advanced into the western state of Maharashtra after covering southern India, however, may bring some relief by the end of the month, the weather department has said.
India’s Odisha state records 8 deaths in 72 hours as heat wave persists
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India’s Odisha state records 8 deaths in 72 hours as heat wave persists
- A total of 159 suspected sun stroke deaths have been reported in Odisha this summer
- India, several parts of Asia have experienced an unusually hot summer in recent weeks
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
