Even as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted a respite from the killing heat for northern and western States in the country from Monday, the death toll in the second deadliest heatwave in the history of India has climbed up to nearly 2,200 in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone.
According to the IMD, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, northern Rajasthan and western UP are expected to experience light rain and thundershowers between June 1 and June 3.
Meanwhile, the monsoon failed to keep its May 30 date with Kerala. Till May 28, on the basis of the fact that the South-West monsoon had advanced into southern parts of South Arabian Sea, in the Maldives, Comorin and in some more parts of South-West Bay of Bengal, the IMD predicted that it will hit Kerala coast by May 30. However, there has been no progress after that.
In the present situation, strong north-westerly winds are prevailing all along the West coast from Gujarat to Kerala. Prior to the onset of monsoon, winds along the Kerala coast have to change to south-westerly, which is a pre-condition to the onset of monsoon. But it has not happened so far.
The experts said there is an anticyclone in the Arabian Sea, which is determining winds all along the Kerala and Karnataka coast. This anticyclone has to become weak for the winds to change their direction to south-westerly. This is expected to happen in at least four-five days and the onset of monsoon over Kerala is likely to be sometime on June 3. The delayed monsoon will come as grim news for Andhra and Telangana, which have seen isolated thundershowers since the last few days. But that has hardly helped to bring down the temperature.
A number of districts in the two States are still in the grip of the heatwave with 20 more deaths reported from Telangana during the last 24 hours.
Raja Rao, Deputy Director, Hyderabad Meteorological Center said that the delay in the onset of monsoon was the cause of the severity of the heatwave. "The heatwave will continue in Telangana for another three days and two more days in Andhra Pradesh", he said.
All the ten districts of Telangana and four districts of Andhra Pradesh will feel the intensity of the heatwave over the next two to three days as temperature will be much above the normal.
Officials said the toll in the two States has gone up to 2,196 with more people falling victims to sun stroke and other heatwave related problems.
Sada Bhargavi, Special Commissioner Disaster Management, Telangana said that reports of 20 deaths were received on Saturday while 52 people died in the last 24 hours till last evening taking the total toll in the State over the last five weeks to 561.
In Andhra Pradesh the situation was grimmer where an official statement has put the death toll till Friday evening at 1,636. "It may go up further as we don't have the figures for the last 24 hours as yet", a State Government official said.
While Telangana's figures were for the period of one-and-a-half month, deaths in AP were recorded since May 13. However the worst was still not over for India as the heatwave was now raging in many other parts of the country.
Hanmakonda in Warangal district recorded the highest temperature of 47 degrees Celsius followed by Ramagundam, Nalgonda and Khammam 45 degrees Celsius while Jangamaheshwarapur in Guntur district was the hottest place in Guntur with 47 degrees Celsius. Khammam, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Adilabad in Telangana were in the grip of a heatwave while a similar situation was prevailing in Nellore, Prakasham, Guntur, Krishna and Kurnool districts of Andhra Pradesh. "The temperature in these areas was three to seven degrees above normal" KY Reddy, Director of Meteorological Center at Hyderabad said.
Prakasham district has recorded the highest death toll of 333 followed by Guntur with 233. The other worst hit districts include East Godavari (192), Visakhapatanam (185) Vizianagaram (177) Nellore 1(163).
In Case of Telangana, Nalgonda district recorded highest death toll of 139, Karimnagar 120 and Khammam 95 (excluding Sunday's deaths). Hyderabad also registered ten deaths.
Despite such large-scale deaths the Telangana Government has not announced any ex-gratia to the affected families on the ground that Government rules do not recognize heatwave as a natural calamity. But the Andhra Pradesh Government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 100000 to family of every victim of heatwave.