The steel city turned a cauldron with temperature scaling up to 46.9 degree Celsius, the highest in a decade. “It feels like walking through a furnace,” said Roshan lakra, a mason on his way to work at 8 am.
From dawn to late afternoon for last few days, people preferred to remain indoors, except for the office-goers, labourers and students who are bound to venture out and face the sun’s wrath. They use sun-masks like wet towels, Dupattas and umbrellas.
Four sunstroke deaths have already been reported from the city while many in rural areas have gone unreported. While the administration has failed to open adequate watersheds, many social organisations have opened the facility. The municipality is headless and there is no one to shoulder the responsibility of ensuring constant water supply to the kiosks.
While homemaker Ajit Moharana feared dehydration, tailor Surya Patra said that working in torrid heat is getting difficult with the staff preferring a break during the peak hours.
The situation is also no better in rural pockets where industrialisation has taken a heavy toll on the green cover and
traditional water bodies have dried up. The water supply crisis and regular load shedding have multiplied tragedy of denizens. Starting from urban areas to rural areas, many tube-wells are going dry or out of order.