Record India heatwave raises power cut fears

A record-breaking “heat dome” across north-west India has worsened a severe shortage of coal for power generation and raised the risk of blackouts at hospitals in New Delhi, according to government statements.

The heatwave, which has pushed temperatures to more than 45C in places, is forecast to worsen this weekend and ease after May 2, according to the India Meteorological Department.

The high temperatures, which began in March, have driven up power demand from air conditioning units, worsening a critical shortage of the coal that is used to generate power for New Delhi and other nearby cities.

The intense temperatures, from 35 degrees in Mumbai up to 43 degrees in New Delhi, have arrived much earlier than usual, taking the country by surprise and exposing hundreds of millions of people to heat stress.

“We are seeing many cases of heat exhaustion, dysentery, body ache, and the number of viral fever cases have increased too since the last two weeks,” said Dr Madhav Thombre, a general practitioner based in Mumbai. “This year the heat was severe and came earlier than usual.”

The prolonged heatwave is caused by a stagnant weather pattern or “heat dome”, similar to the one that caused record heat and fires across Canada and the north-western US last year.

This March was the hottest March in more than a century in north-west India, and April is poised to set records too.

The stagnant weather that drives such a long heatwave is caused by a slowing of the jet stream, according to Zachary Zobel of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts. The jet stream is a fast-moving band of air high in the atmosphere that governs the weather patterns of the northern hemisphere.

As the world warms, heatwaves “are going to get more intense and occur over longer durations”, said Zobel. “There will be parts of the world that will be at times nearly uninhabitable. This is another piece in the data set that is trending in that direction.”

The world has already warmed around 1.1C since pre-industrial times, and is expected to pass 1.5C of warming within the next two decades if current emissions trends continue.

New Delhi officials warned on Friday that there “may be a problem” with power supply to essential institutions, including hospitals and the metro system, according to a government statement cited by local media.

Coal shortages, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and high global coal prices, could threaten blackouts for New Delhi unless urgent action is taken, warned the Indian capital’s health and power minister Satyendar Jain in a video posted on Twitter.

“At many power plants, there is less than a day’s coal left,” he said on Friday.

India’s wheat crop, which is usually harvested in April, could also be damaged by the prolonged heatwave, contributing to fears about global wheat shortages.

In New Delhi, even people used to extremely hot weather are struggling to cope with the latest spell.

“Yesterday was really a breaking point,” said Chandni Singh, who took an afternoon bus ride across New Delhi with no air conditioning on Wednesday, when temperatures were 42C — 44C. The next day she suffered from heat stress, fatigue, and dehydration.

But Singh, a social scientist at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, said she was among the lucky ones. “At the end of it I knew I was going home to a cool space, I have an air conditioner,” she said. “A lot of people on the bus around me . . . are not going into such homes.”

On the streets of Mumbai, India’s business capital, the heatwave is compounding the woes of roadside fruit seller Shiv Kumar Gupta.

“I have noticed in the past few weeks that the food is spoiling faster,” said the 25-year-old, who sells mangoes and pink dragon fruit during peak heat hours.

Like millions of India’s informal vendors, he has no shop to shelter in. “I manage by sitting under the shade here and drinking water,” he shrugged.