HEATWAVE IN SOUTHERN PAKISTAN KILLING 450

KARACHI, Pakistan – Like its neighbouring India who suffered deadliest heatwave in its history, with more than 2,000 deaths, Pakistan also battled worst heatwave in the country.

More than 450 people reported have died from a three-day heatwave in southern Pakistan on Tuesday.

The death toll in worst-hit Karachi, where temperatures hit 45°C at the weekend was at least 450 while another eight to 10 people died in other parts of southern Sindh province, said Sabir Memon, a senior provincial health official.

Semi Jamali, a doctor at Karachi’s largest hospital said they had treated about 3000 patients suffering from heat stroke.

• More than 200 of them were either received dead or died in hospital, Jamali told AFP. Another 67 people died in another hospital, the Civil Hospital, an official there said.

Pakistan’s largest charity, Edhi Welfare Organisation, said their two morgues in the city had received more than 400 corpses.

In Karachi, a city of 20 million people, electricity shortages crippled the water supply system, hampering the pumping of millions of gallons of water to consumers, the state-run water utility said.

Pakistan’s Met Office said temperatures hit 43°C in Karachi on Sunday and 49°C in the southwestern city of Turbat, close to the Iranian border.

Source: – AFP