Nearly 100 people have died in India’s Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states as the north and east of the country struggle to cope with a heatwave.
At least 400 people were admitted to a district hospital in Ballia in Uttar Pradesh with complaints of fever, breathlessness and other health complications. Of them, 54 died after suspected heart attacks, strokes and diarrhoea, officials said.
Most of the patients were aged over 60 and had pre-existing health conditions.
On Sunday, the district experienced a maximum temperature of 43°C – five degrees above the normal range for the month.
The government has opened an investigation into the deaths.
“Most of the patients who are coming for treatment complain that they first had chest pain, difficulty in breathing, and then fever. We are getting tests done,” Dr AK Singh, who is leading the investigation, said.
Dr SK Yadav, chief medical superintendent at the Ballia hospital, had earlier said about 300 patients had been admitted to the hospital for various ailments aggravated by heat.
In neighbouring Bihar, sweltering heat gripped most parts of the state.
At least 42 deaths were reported at two hospitals in the state capital Patna at the weekend.
More than 200 people suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting were being treated at hospitals.
The city recorded a maximum temperature of 44.7°C on Saturday.
India's Meteorological Department has also predicted severe heatwave conditions in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand this week.
Authorities have extended summer holidays for schoolchildren in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand.
Experts say the heatwave is the result of the delayed monsoon.
The monsoon system usually enters India's mainland from the southern state of Kerala on about June 1, but this year it was delayed by a week due to Cyclone Biparjoy, leading to 37 per cent less rainfall.
The monsoon gradually moves north-west, covering the entire subcontinent over the next three months. The country receives about 75 per cent of its rainfall during this period.
“The heatwave conditions are prevailing over many parts of eastern India, eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh, due to delayed monsoon. It should have reached up to eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh but it is still over north-east India,” Mahesh Palawat, vice president of private weather forecaster Skymet Weather, told The National.
Mr Palawat said the monsoon was delayed as Cyclone Biparjoy churned in the Arabian Sea for a month before making landfall last week in the western state of Gujarat.
“This year we have seen a delayed onset of monsoon because of the cyclone. Its movement was very slow. It was the longest cyclone that stayed in the deep sea. Until it was over the Arabian Sea, it restricted the flow of the monsoon over the South Peninsula,” he said.
The nation of 1.4 billion has felt unprecedented heat for the last few years.
Last year, it reeled under one of the warmest summers since records began in 1901.
While the northern and eastern states are waiting for rainfall, monsoon showers have been lashing the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Intense thunderstorms and torrential rains pounded coastal areas of the capital Chennai in Tamil Nadu on Sunday, inundating many low-lying areas and flooding runways at the city’s airport.
The IMD has predicted heavy rainfall in Kerala on Monday.
