With 13 more deaths, toll now stands at 1,216

Karachi
With the deaths of at least 13 more persons at different hospitals on Sunday, the official death toll caused by the unprecedented heat wave in Sindh rose to 1,216.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, PPP Senators and other ministers visited public hospitals to inquire after the health of under treatment patients.
Five patients undergoing medical treatment at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), after suffering a heat stroke died while the dead body of a heat stroke victim was also brought to the health facility. The Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) also reported five deaths of under-treatment patients.
The temperature throughout the day remained around 40 degrees Celsius while the heat index was around 42 degrees due to higher humidity and a relatively low pressure of the sea breeze or South Westerly wind, from the Arabian Sea.
According to the forecast of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), due to the low pressure winds Monday and Tuesday would be warm with comparatively higher level of humidity whereas the heat index could be much higher than the actual temperature to be recorded in the city in the next two days.
Sunday also witnessed a similar situation to that of last week as several localities including Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Malir, Landhi, Korangi, New Karachi, North Nazimabad, Garden, Federal B Area, PECHS and many others remained without electricity for several hours; triggering several protests by enraged residents blocking thoroughfares.
Officials of the Sindh Health Department for the first time admitted that death toll had crossed the figure of 1,213.

Govt officials’ visits
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari visited the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) to personally inquire after the condition of heatstroke victims admitted at the facility.
He was accompanied by Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Health Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar, Senator Sherry Rehman and senior PPP member Jameel Soomro.
Medical Superintendent of the CHK informed that 1,200 patients had so far been treated for heatstroke whereas several others were still undergoing medical treatment.
Speaking on the occasion, Bilawal directed the hospital managements to dedicate special wards and equip them with required facilities for heatstroke patients till the heat spell lasted.
Provincial Information Minister Sharjeel Memon while visiting the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital fixed the responsibility of Sindh’s predicament over the K-Electric (KE) and the federal government.
“If uninterrupted power supply was ensured to households across Karachi, the number of deaths would have been far less.”
He claimed that most of the casualties were of elderly persons, who died inside their due to suffocation caused by frequent power outages. Memon claimed that event the KE accepted that there was a fault in their transmission system.
He announced that the government had declared emergency at all public hospitals whereas leaves of doctors and paramedics had been cancelled.
He was accompanied by Administrator Karachi Roshan Shaikh, Municipal Commissioner Samiuddin Siddiqui, Deputy Commissioner Central Afzal Zaidi and others.
He claimed that the deaths due to heat stroke could be avoided by awareness campaigns for which he said the provincial government was making use of public and private media.
Sindh Health Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar during his visit to the JPMC said that around 37 percent of the total deaths happened due to heat strokes and related illnesses.
He said that death toll doubled only because of the continuous load shedding carried out by the KE.
Provincial minister Sharmila Farooqi also visited the Qatar Hospital in Orangi Town where almost 40 persons died due to heat stroke over the past nine days while hundreds of people were still undergoing treatment at the hospital.