As South Asia heats up under a scorching heat wave, life-and-death decisions come with the midday sun.
Abideen Khan and his 10-year-old son need every penny of the $3.50 a day they can make to mold bricks from mud in an open-air kiln in Jacobabad, a city in southern Pakistan. But as temperatures have soared to 126 degrees Fahrenheit, or 52 degrees Celsius, in recent days, they have been forced to stop in the early afternoon, cutting their profits in half.
“This is how we survived,” Khan said, sweat running down his face and soaking through his worn clothes. “It’s a choice between working until 1 p.m. or collapsing from the heat.”
It’s another brutal summer in the era of climate change, in a part of the world that is among the most vulnerable to its dire effects. And there is more suffering to come: The extreme heat that Pakistan and neighboring India have been experiencing will continue for days or weeks, forecasters say. It has already taken a deadly toll.
In the northern Indian state of Bihar, authorities said at least 14 people had died from the heat. Reports from other northern Indian states indicate the count could be considerably higher. In both India and Pakistan, hospitals have reported large numbers of heatstroke cases.
Ten of those who died in Bihar were poll workers preparing for voting in the state on Saturday, the final day of India’s national elections. To mitigate the heat, glucose and electrolytes are being distributed to election officials, tents are being erected to provide shade, and clay pots will provide cold water. New Delhi, where temperatures have approached 122 degrees this week, almost 20 degrees above normal, recorded its first official heat-related death of the year on Wednesday.
In Jacobabad, long considered one of the hottest places on Earth, the temperature reached 126 degrees on Sunday, with highs of 124 on each of the next three days. About 120 kilometers away, the Pakistani city of Mohenjo Daro, notable for its Indus Valley civilization sites from 2500 BC, hit 127 degrees on Sunday, just shy of a record set in 2010.
“This is not heat,” said Khan, the bricklayer. “It’s a punishment, maybe from God.”
The scorching temperatures compound the challenges for Pakistan, a country of 241 million people already grappling with economic and political turmoil.
For the more than a million people who live in Jacobabad district, life is dominated by constant efforts to find ways to cope with the heat. Blackouts lasting 12 to 20 hours a day are common and some villages lack electricity altogether. The absence of necessities such as available water and adequate housing exacerbates suffering.
Most residents cannot afford air conditioning or alternatives such as solar-powered batteries and rechargeable fans made in China. A solar panel to run two fans and a light bulb costs workers in Jacobabad about a month’s salary.
The water crisis is so bad that donkeys can be seen in the streets carrying tanks, from which residents buy enough water to fill five small plastic jerry cans for a dollar. Rising demand has driven up the price of ice, making this essential product even harder to find.
Many of the poor have no choice but to work outdoors. Rice, the lifeblood of Pakistan’s agriculture, requires backbreaking work in the fields from May to July, the hottest months.
For Sahiba, a 25-year-old farm worker who goes by one name, each day begins before dawn. He cooks for his family and then walks for miles with other women to reach the fields, where they work until the afternoon under the relentless sun. Nine months pregnant with her tenth child, she carries a double burden.
“If we take a day or half a day off, there is no daily wage, which means my children go hungry that night,” Ms. Sahiba said.
Each summer, between 25 and 30 percent of the district’s population become temporary climate refugees, according to community activists. Some seek refuge in Quetta, a city 300 kilometers to the north, where the heat is more bearable. Others go to the port city of Karachi, 310 miles to the south, which has had its own deadly heat waves but offers some relief with its less frequent blackouts.
“Those who can afford it can rent houses in colder cities, but most residents are simply too poor. They are struggling to survive under makeshift tents erected in the open,” said Jan Odhano, director of the Community Development Foundation, a Jacobabad-based organization that helps the poor cope with the heat.
Jansher Khoso, a 38-year-old textile worker, knows this struggle very well.
In 2018, her mother went to the hospital with heat stroke when temperatures soared in Jacobabad. Now, every April, she sends his family to Quetta, where they stay until the fall, while he works in Karachi. But this comes at a high price.
“I work 16 hours in Karachi to cover the expenses of this temporary migration,” Khoso said, “because I don’t want any member of my family to die in the cruel heat of Jacobabad.”
Jacobabad’s suffering has not been limited to high temperatures. In 2022, devastating monsoon rains and floods, linked to erratic weather patterns associated with climate change, submerged the district and about a third of Pakistan overall, killing at least 1,700 people.
Heat is nothing new in the city, which is named after John Jacob, a British brigadier general who experienced its harsh climate firsthand in the 19th century.
Leading a small force to quell rebellious tribes and bandits, General Jacob lost a lieutenant and seven soldiers to the heat on the first day of a 10-mile march. His diary described the wind as “a furnace gust,” even at night.
To cope with the hostile climate, General Jacob introduced an irrigation system and built three canals to supply fresh water to the residents. Today the canals are dry and full of garbage.
Suhasini Raj contributed reporting from New Delhi.