Life on a construction site in Noida, a satellite city of the Indian capital New Delhi, is difficult enough for Yogendra Tundre. Record high temperatures are making it unbearable this year.
As India deals with an unprecedented heatwave, the vast majority of the country’s poor workers, who typically work outside, are vulnerable to scorching temperatures.
“There’s too much heat, and what will we eat if we don’t work?” “We work for a few days and then sit idle for a few days due to exhaustion and heat,” Tundre explained.
Temperatures in the New Delhi area have reached 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) this year, causing Tundre and his wife Lata, who works on the same construction site, to become ill. As a result, they lose money.
According to the India Meteorological Department, the relentless heatwave will cause temperatures in some parts of New Delhi to rise above 120 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday (IMD).
“Sometimes I don’t go to work because of the heat.” I take vacation days… “I frequently become ill from dehydration and then require glucose bottles (intravenous fluids),” Lata explained as she stood outside their temporary shanty with a tin roof.
Scientists have linked the early onset of a hot summer to climate change, and they estimate that more than a billion people in India and neighbouring Pakistan are at risk from the extreme heat.
India had its hottest March in more than a century, and parts of the country experienced their warmest April on record.
Many places, including New Delhi, saw temperatures rise above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Since late March, more than a dozen people have died from suspected heat strokes, and power demand has reached multi-year highs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged state governments to devise strategies to mitigate the effects of the extreme heat.
On a hot summer day in Noida, India, workers and heatwave labourers work at a construction site. [Reuters/Anushree Fadnavis]
Tundre and Lata live in a slum near a construction site in Noida with their two young children. They moved to the capital from their home state of Chhattisgarh in central India in search of work and higher wages.
On the construction site, workers scale the walls, lay concrete, and carry heavy loads while wearing only ragged scarves around their heads for sun protection.
Even when the couple finishes their day’s work, they return to their hot home, which has been absorbing the heat of the sun all day.
According to Avikal Somvanshi, an urban environment researcher at India’s Centre for Science and Environment, federal government data show that heat stress was the second most common cause of death from natural forces in the last 20 years, after lightning.
“The majority of these fatalities occur in men aged 30 to 45.” “These are working-class, blue-collar men who have no choice but to work in the sweltering heat,” Somvanshi explained.
Unlike in some Middle Eastern countries, there are no laws in India that prohibit outdoor activity when temperatures exceed a certain threshold, according to Somvanshi.
