Rising temperatures and humidity, coupled with electricity shortages, water stress and the absence of heat adaptation measures, have exceeded thresholds that experts say the human body can stand, with more intense summers arriving earlier in the year, and some experts say that going forward, those extreme conditions could last for 10 months each year. Last month, the temperature here reached 123.8 degrees and before that, reached 122 degrees on three separate occasions. And Jacobabad has been among the cities worst hit, experiencing temperatures in excess of 100 degrees for 51 straight days. Since the beginning of March, an unprecedented heat wave has gripped India and Pakistan, affecting more than a billion people on the subcontinent. Jacobabad, a landlocked city in Pakistan’s Sindh Province nearly 340 miles north of Karachi, is pushing the limits of human livability on a warming planet. A farm worker in Jacobabad’s rice fields, Musa, 65, arrived with a 102 degree temperature, body aches and severe dehydration. On the opposite side of the ward, kept at a cool 78 degrees by a whirring air conditioner, Muhammad Musa occupies another bed, its cobalt blue frame contrasting starkly with his face, which is drained of color. JACOBABAD, Pakistan-Sajjad Ali lies semi-conscious in the heatstroke center at Civil Hospital here, an intravenous line in his wrist delivering fluids to his dehydrated body.Īli, 15, operates a tractor in the fields on the outskirts of Jacobabad-one of the hottest cities on Earth-and was carried to the hospital after his temperature remained at 102 degrees Fahrenheit for a week.
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