Heat Wave Kills More Than 122 In Pakistan

Ambulance taking away dead bodies at Karachi

Pope Francis recently released an encyclical stating that a revolution was needed to combat climate change. The Pope said humanity’s “reckless” behavior has pushed the planet to a perilous “breaking point.”

Pakistan seems to have got a foretaste of what the Pope was saying, when a heat wave struck its largest city.

Pakistani health officials have reported that a heatwave which hit Karachi and other districts of southern Sindh province has killed at least 122 people.

Man dying from the heat in Pakistan

The provincial health secretary who spoke to AFP news agency said that “Since Saturday 114 people have died in Karachi and eight others (have died) in three districts of Sindh.”

He went on to say that the provincial government had imposed a state of emergency at all hospitals, cancelling leave for doctors and other medical staff and increasing stocks of medical supplies.

Bodies piled up in a hospital at Krachi, Pakistan

The southern port city of Karachi saw temperatures reach as high as 45 degrees Celsius on Saturday, just short of an all-time high in the city of 47 C in June 1979.

Many dying from the heat wave that struck Pakistan on Saturday

The head of the emergency department at state-run Jinnah Hospital, Dr Seemin Jamali, said more than 100 people had died at the hospital.

“They all died of heat stroke,” she added.

According to Dawn.com news website, Jamali was quoted to have said that a large number of the deceased were old people.

“All the deaths had occurred since Saturday evening” officials said.

Bodies piled in Karachi Hospital, following heat wave incident.

CNN reports that the death toll in Pakistan’s heat wave tragedy may have risen to about 140.

A heat wave which struck India last month killed about 1000 people in a week.