Several faint in Karachi as heat persists

KARACHI: Several people, particularly the elderly, fell unconscious and had to be taken to hospitals on Friday as the mercury crossed 40 degrees Celsius for a second straight day and prolonged load-shedding added to the woes of Karachi residents. Some 12-14 people, mostly elderly labourers and passers-by, were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and some other health facilities of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation after they fainted from heat exhaustion, Dr Birbal Genani, the Senior Director Health and Medical Services of KMC told The News. He added that all of them were discharged after being given the necessary first aid. According to Genani, KMC’s 13 hospitals were on high alert since the weather warning issued by the Met department earlier and remained vigilant to deal with any emergency in the hot and dry weather.

Two-day spell

Friday remained the second consecutive very hot and dry day in the city as the mercury soared to 40.5 degrees Celsius. A day earlier on Thursday, the hottest day of the year was recorded with the mercury at 44 degrees Celsius.

According to the Met office, the city is in the grip of a two-day heatwave which is expected to let up. The temperature would start dropping from Saturday (today) and is expected to be between 37-38 degrees Celsius and further drop in the coming days, Karachi Met Office Director Abdur Rashid told The News.

He said a low pressure area in upper Sindh had deprived Karachi of sea breeze and warm winds from the plains of Sindh turned the weather very hot in the coastal city, where weather usually remains moderate as compared to the interior of Sindh, Balochistan and many areas of Punjab.

According to Rashid, the highest ever temperature recorded in the month of May in Karachi was 47.8 degrees Celsius, which was recorded in 1938. He said the Met office was expecting this record to be broken in the current season as Thursday had been the warmest day this year.

Like other countries of South Asia, Pakistan is in the grip of severely hot weather and on April 30 the city of Nawabshah made the world record for the hottest day ever recorded in April when the mercury climbed to 50.2 degrees Celsius.

Powerless

Many areas of the city endured announced and unannounced load-shedding from the night of Thursday in the hot weather. Even areas that have been declared ‘load-shedding free zones’ had to face power outages.

Residents of different areas said they endured 3 to 10 hours of load-shedding from Thursday night till the filing of this report, and in some areas, three spells of 2-3 hours of load-shedding was carried out despite the intense heat.

K-Electric said that due to “an unexpected fault” in the Bin Qasim power plant, it would be resorting to load-shedding for next three to four days.

Reducing the temperatures

Meanwhile, Federal Forest Inspector General Dr Syed Nasir Mahmood has said that about 6 to 10 degrees Celsius can be reduced in Karachi by planting trees following the international concept of urban forestry.

There is a dire need to promote vertical or roof gardening in the megalopolis where 80 per cent of land is covered with concrete, he said, speaking at the 45th public awareness seminar titled Recent Advances in Ecosystem Development, held at the University of Karachi on Friday.

Mahmood said that deforestation and degradation of forests have become the real threat for the ecosystem of Pakistan.

Internationally, deforestation and forest degradation impact the lives of millions of people whose livelihoods depend on forests, said Mahmood.

The federal inspector general said that like other parts of the country Karachi was also being provided vegetables which are cultivated from unhygienic water of gutters and sewers. In the city, every building or house needs to have its own vegetable garden for small-scale production of fresh food, he maintained.

Forests have a critical role to mitigate climate change and work as a carbon sink. He said deforestation weakens this foremost carbon sink function and pointed out that it is estimated that 15 to 20 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions are the result of deforestation.

He said that Pakistan’s total forest area was at 3.57 per cent back in 1990, while it was 3.44 per cent in 2004, which is an alarming situation. Pakistan needs to fight against the adverse and unpleasant impacts of climate change by promoting forest culture in the country, he added.