India’s deadly heatwaves are getting even hotter
The consequences of climate change will be horrific for the Indo-Gangetic Plain
In the opening scenes of “The Ministry for the Future”, the American novelist Kim Stanley Robinson imagines what happens to a small Indian town hit by a heatwave. Streets empty as normal activity becomes impossible. Air-conditioned rooms fill with silent fugitives from the heat. Rooftops are littered with the corpses of people sleeping outside in search of a non-existent breath of wind. The electricity grid, then law and order, break down. Like a medieval vision of hell, the local lake fills with half-poached bodies. Across north India, 20m die in a week.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “At the limits of human endurance”
From the April 8th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Asia
China is infiltrating Taiwan’s armed forces
And Taiwan is struggling to deal with the growing number of spies
Donald Trump and Japan’s Ishiba Shigeru make for an odd couple
But shared interests can help keep America and Japan close
Pakistan is furious with the Afghan Taliban
Violence on the border is the worst it has been for a decade
Japan could finally face its own #MeToo crisis
A series of scandals has rocked the country
India’s attempt to save the tiger has been a remarkable success
The predator is now thriving in many parts of the country, even alongside humans
Why India isn’t winning the contest with China
A series of setbacks suggest that new policies are needed