Oh what a summer!

In Punjab, it was the same story. S.S. Hundal, the head of the agro-meteorology department at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, says the prevailing heat conditions are the worst in a quarter of a century.

The heat wave claimed at least sixlives in Bathinda district. Besides affecting human life all over the state, it has also caused damage to some of the newly-sown kharif crops in Punjab. The maximum damage has been reported in the cotton crop, with at least 16 per cent of it having wilted in the blistering heat prevailing in Bathinda and Mansa districts.

Rajasthan, on its part, experienced a 20-day heat wave in May that threw normal life out of gear and took some 200 lives. Over 300 suffering from heat stroke were admitted to the various public hospitals of Jaipur alone. The maximum temperature recorded in the state this year was 49.8 degrees Celsius in Dholpur. Jaipur had its worst summer in 18 years, with the mercury rising to 46.6 degrees Celsius.

Not surprisingly, normal life was considerably affected. Jaipur looked like a city under siege, with it deserted roads. The few scooterists who ventured out did so only after swaddling their heads in towels. Daily earners like rickshaw pullers and street vendors were doubly hit. Even as theheat sapped their energy, they got very few customers since people preferred to stay indoors.

To make matters worse for the ordinary city resident, water was in short supply. Says Niru, a Jaipur housewife: “An air-cooler filled to capacity with about three buckets of water runs dry in two to three hours. So running a cooler all through the day is out of the question.”

Rumours seemed to proliferate in the hot air. Many in the state believed that the Pokharan nuclear blasts had something to do with the weather, since the heat wave had manifested itself two days after the initial explosions of May 11. Governor Darbara Singh’s death, soon after his visit to Pokharan with the Prime Minister, seemed to confirm these fears. Meteorologists had a tough time denying such fantastic deductions.

Says Shiv Shankar Singh, director of the state’s Meteorological Centre: “This is a perfectly normal summer with a perfectly normal air pattern, there being no westerly disturbances to interfere with it.” Last year,westerly disturbances had caused intermittent rains throughout the summer months, cooling things a bit in the process. According to him, even the 20-day heat wave the state experienced is not uncommon it happened both in 1994 and 1992.

The director of Orissa’s Meteorological Centre, O.P. Singh, also has a similar explanation for the weather conditions in his state. According to him, during May and early June, the state gets winds in the lower atmosphere coming from the south, south-west and even, occasionally, the south-east. These winds advect large amount of moisture from the Bay of Bengal to the state which results in thundershowers or light rains at regular intervals, which moderate summer heat. This time, however, after mid-May thundershower activities were subdued because of the absence of southern winds.

A similar phenomenon ensured that the entire state of Andhra Pradesh sizzled this summer with temperatures shooting way above 40 degrees. A local weatherman put it this way: “It’s not as if wehave never witnessed temperatures above 40 degrees in the state, but it never lasted for more than a couple of days. This time, because of the hot winds blowing over the land, the cooling sea breezes were prevented from blowing in. This led to long heat spells.” There has, in fact, been a prolonged dry spell since May 20 here.

The heat took its toll on the people of the state too over the past three weeks, at least 500 have died as a result of it. Cattle, poultry and small animals have all succumbed to the unrelenting weather conditions in tens of thousands. But of all the regions, it was the coastal district of East Godavari that seemed the most affected it accounted for over 100 deaths.

As always, it was the poor who feel the sun’s fury most of all. Many who died were those whose work entails working out under the sun, like a 50-year-old policeman in Jaipur or the beggars and rag-pickers of Bhubaneswar. High casualties were reported among the farming community and rural labourers. Several deaths werereported from railway stations where the poorest of the poor often take shelter. The old are particularly vulnerable. According to figures culled from Orissa, about 25 per cent of those who died of heat stroke this summer were over 60 years old, while women and children accounted for another 50 per cent.

Says Dr Lakshmikant Joshi, a senior physician in the Andhra Mahila Sabha Hospital in Hyderabad: “Most patients were brought to the hospital in the hyper pyrexia stage, where their chances of survival were bleak.” Heat exertion is the first sign of this condition. If the patient gets proper treatment at these stage, their chances of recovery are bright, but being poor and neglected their condition is often allowed to deteriorate sharply, until they are beyond recovery. Patients invariably complain of vomiting, stomach pains, abdominal cramp and high body temperatures. A person affected by sun-stroke could record abnormally high temperatures of 115 degree F and thereabouts. The majority of those who die,however, record body temperatures varying between 106 to 110 degrees F.

Unfortunately, the government welfare and health departments are just not geared to tackle the problem. This summer, they failed miserably in coming to the rescue of the victims. Says a Hyderabad-based official, who preferred to remain anonymous: “We are not recording the deaths as heat wave since it is not regarded as a natural calamity as per the rules.”

Not surprisingly then government hospitals are poorly equipped to deal with such patients. Said a doctor in Hyderabad’s Gandhi hospital: “Of course, we give them saline like any other patient, but no special funds are allocated for such cases.”

Clearly, it’s time that the country thought a bit more about its victims of sun. That is the single most important lesson of the summer of ’98.

— with RAJESH SINHA in Jaipur, BIJOY PRADHAN in Bhubaneswar, S RAMAKRISHNA in Hyderbad and bureau reports