ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued an alert warning of the season’s first heatwave this week and saying temperatures were likely to rise about four to six degrees above normal in some parts of the country.

A study published this month by the American Geophysical Union, an international scientific association, said deadly heatwaves in South Asia, including Pakistan, were likely to become more common in the future, with the region’s exposure to lethal heat stress potentially nearly tripling if global warming isn’t curbed. 

“Sindh, Southern Punjab, Eastern and Southern Balochistan will remain in the grip of a very hot and dry weather from Tuesday to Saturday,” the NDMA said in its advisory. “Temperatures are also likely to rise in most sub mountainous areas of the country.”

The document urged provincial authorities to take necessary mitigation measures, including the “establishment of heatstroke stabilization centers, relief centers at government and private hospitals, basic rural health units, any available government buildings and community centers with generator-based electricity and assured provision/availability of water.”

The NDMA asked authorities to take necessary steps to enhance awareness campaigns to educate the public on preventive measures and stockpile important emergency relief medicines.

In a region home to a quarter of the world’s population, heatwaves could have a big impact on the ability of workers to produce crops in breadbasket regions such as West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh in India and Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan, the American Geophysical Union study said.

Workers in increasingly steamy cities such as Karachi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Peshawar could also be affected, particularly as many do not have access to air conditioning.

Pakistan and India already experience deadly heat waves, with one in 2015 causing about 3,500 deaths, the study noted.