Ten places in Northern India featured in the list of 15 hottest places on earth on Sunday as a severe heatwave swept the region, says a report in Hindustan Times.
The five remaining places on the list were in neighbouring Pakistan, making the region warmest on earth, even as Agartala in Tripura has received maximum rainfall in the world since Saturday.
Finer Points:
- Rajasthan’s Churu and Sri Ganganagar, where the mercury shot up to 48.9 and 48.6 degrees Celsius, respectively, were the hottest places in the world
- Jacobabad (48 degree Celsius) in Pakistan was the second hottest place on earth
- Banda (47.4 degrees C
elsius) in Uttar Pradesh and Narnual (47.2 degrees Celsius) in Haryana, too, featured on the list. - Other cities that breached the 45 degrees Celsius mark include: Delhi, Jaipur, Kota, Hyderabad, and Lucknow.
- Places like Shimla, Nainital, and Srinagar, which are expected to be cooler, recorded two to four degree above normal temperatures. In Shimla, the maximum temperature on Sunday was 32 degree Celsius and in Nainital 33 degrees Celsius.
- 2018 was the warmest in India since 1901. IMD forecasts indicate that 2019 could be a notch warmer if the monsoon rainfall is not as per near normal prediction for it.
- According to information provided to Parliament in February, the killer heat has left 6,167 dead in India between 2010 and 2018. As many as 2,081 deaths were recorded in 2015 alone.
IMD defines heat waves differently for varying topographies. Maximum temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius is treated as a heat wave in the plains, above 37 degrees Celsius in case of coastal areas, and above 30 degrees Celsius in hilly areas.