In the past 24 hours, at least ten places from India have ranked among the 15 hottest places, while the rest were in Pakistan, weather monitoring website El Dorado reported.
Churu, Ganganagar, Phalodi, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Nowgong, Narnaul, Kota Aerodrome, Barmer and Pilani were among the places that featured on the list. Rajasthan’s Churu topped the list with 50.3 degree Celsius.
According to the Indian Meteorological Department, Rajasthan’s Churu recorded the highest temperature of 48.9 degrees Celsius on Monday, 3 June, Reuters reported.
Intense heat continued to paralyse normal life in Rajasthan where a farmer died of sunstroke on Sunday, 2 June. Heat wave warnings were issued on Monday for some places in western Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
The city has issued a heat wave advisory and government hospitals have prepared emergency wards with extra air conditioners, coolers and medicines, Reuters reported quoting Ramratan Sonkariya, additional district magistrate for Churu.
Measures like water being poured on the roads are also taken to keep the temperature down.
On Sunday, the temperature in national capital touched 44.6 degrees Celsius. The food delivery app, Zomato, asked its customers to greet delivery staff with a glass of cold water.
The monsoon, which brings down the heat, is likely to begin on the southern coast on 6 June, the weather office said last month.
The three-month, pre-monsoon season, which ended on May 31, was the second driest in the last 65 years, private forecaster Skymet, said, with a national average of 99 mm of rain against the normal average of 131.5 mm for the season.
(With inputs from Reuters and El Dorado)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)