Deadly heat wave kills more than 1,400

  28 May 2015    Read: 885
Deadly heat wave kills more than 1,400
Amruta Bai spends her day refilling plastic water cups behind a stall on the stifling hot streets of Hyderabad.

The water is free for anyone who needs a drink during a deadly heat wave that`s killed more than 1,424 people in the past few days.

Most of the deaths -- 1,020 -- have been in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, though another 340 have died in nearby Telangana, where Hyderabad is the capital.

People stop by Bai`s stall every two minutes as the temperature slowly rises toward its peak, typically in mid- to late afternoon.

On Wednesday, temperatures in Hyderabad were forecast to hit a high of almost 43 degrees Celsius, or around 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Nights, while cooler, hover around a sticky 30 C or 86 F. During the day, humidity is around 30%.

Ice cream seller Bharat says evenings and early mornings are the best for business. He`s selling twice as much ice cream compared with last year. But afternoons are typically quiet. It`s too hot for most people to come onto the streets.

And that`s where the true cost of this heat wave has been felt.

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