Winter chill in northern India by Sean Batty
Cold weather across northern and eastern India has killed at least 80 people in the past week, forcing authorities to close schools and colleges and deliver firewood to the homeless, officials said on Friday.
In India’s most populous state of Utter Pradesh 34 people have died as night-time temperatures plummeted close to freezing, making life a misery for tens of thousands of people, who live on the streets with few ways of keeping warm. Officials in Utter Pradesh have ordered bonfires to be lit in public places so that poor people can warm themselves. In Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand (eastern India), a rickshaw puller said ‘After dusk there is a mad scramble to get some firewood as only a bonfire can keep us alive at night.
On Friday morning, the minimum temperature in the capital, New Delhi, fell to 4 degrees Celsius (39F), the lowest of the winter so far. The average January minimum temperature is 7 degrees Celsius (45F). The weather office predicted a further fall in temperatures, which will plunge temperatures below freezing in a few places in northern India. Lowest temperature in the plains of the country (NW India), was recorded as minus 2.2 Celsius (28F) at Adampur in Punjab on Sunday morning.
The neighbouring countries of Nepal and Pakistan are also under the grip of this cold wave. An area of high pressure with cold winds from the north is bringing icy air from the Himalayas to the whole area including India. The bone chilling cold also killed two people in Lahore on Friday.
Each year scores of homeless people in India die due to cold because of inadequate food and clothing. Almost 200 people froze to dearth in the country’s north last winter.
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