This story was originally published at Harvard Public Health . Sign up here for Harvard Public Health, exploring what works, what doesn’t, and why. In late May, I woke up at 6 am, hoping to skip the long queue of voters in the last phase of India’s election.
The sun was already blazing, and everything it touched reflected a blinding white light. I looked at my phone: it was already 38 degrees celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). A few years ago, such intense heat just after sunrise would have alarmed everyone.
Now, as the Earth grows hotter, it was just an ordinary Saturday. Here in New Delhi, we are trapped between the scorching sun above and the heat radiating from the concrete below. Our water purifiers melt and our air-conditioners explode .
Our rubber slippers shrink if we forget them in the car. We can boil eggs in the sand . This summer, New Delhi saw the highest temperature ever recorded in India: 52.
3 degrees celsius (126 degrees Fahrenheit), not far below the Death Valley world record of 56.7 degrees Celsius (134 Fahrenheit). The trouble is, unlike the Mojave Desert, Delhi is home to 33 million people.
Heat waves in India are inevitably followed by news of death, which comes word-of-mouth – someone who knew someone you knew. I heard from the lady who sells me vegetables that three of her neighbors had died from extreme heat. By May, when summer here peaks, heat deaths are all over social media and news reports .
But we don’t hear much about these deaths from th.