Heatwave updates: IMD issued severe heatwave alert in Gangetic West Bengal and isolated pockets of Odisha, on Friday.
According to the weather forecast kolkata’s temperature is likely to surpass 40 degrees giving a ‘orange alert’ warning as extreme heatwave conditions sweep over India. The heatwave spell is likely to continue over east India till April 23.
Meanwhile, seven districts in Bengal, including Purba and Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram, Bankura, Birbhum and Paschim Bardhaman districts have also been given a heatwave warning with ‘red alert’.
Paschim Bardhaman’s Panagarh district recorded the highest temperature in West Bengal on Friday, at 44 degrees celsius, over seven notches above normal, the MET department said.
Bardhaman was followed by Medinipur, Suri and Jhargram towns that recorded the day’s maximum temperature at 43.5 degrees Celsius.
According to the weather officials, the early summer heatwave in South Bengal was caused by a combination of intense solar insolation and dry westerly winds at lower altitudes.
As temperatures continue to increase in numerous parts of India, Odisha reported the season’s first sunstroke death. The deceased Laxmikanta Sahu, aged 62, of Maheshpur in Balasore district, died on April 15 due to sunstroke. An official at the Special Relief Commissioner’s office said that this was the first sunstroke death this summer.
According to a public health director in Odisha, 71 people have been admitted to different hospitals in the state after falling ill due to heatwave. Among them, 35 were from Sundargarh, and seven each from Mayurbhanj and Angul.
