blazing realities: Field reports from the frontlines of extreme heat
As high temperatures continue to shatter daily records, communities worldwide are experiencing the impact of extreme heat, from disrupting their livelihoods and income, to harming their health.
These firsthand accounts are meant to raise awareness of the urgent nature of extreme heat, inform solutions and prompt action.
Dhaka’s climate migrants say extreme heat makes their new home ‘hell’
By Mosabber Hossain
On a hot evening on the bustling streets in Mohakhali, a busy commercial district in Bangladesh’s capital, Anzu Ara is frying hotcakes. She is exhausted and dirty after a long day working over her roadside stove amid the traffic exhaust but she needs to make as many more sales as she can.
“My 5-year-old son and my old mother will not be able to eat if I stop,” she said. “Rent is high. Electricity, gas and water are high.”
With little water or power,
Pakistan’s women endure harsher heat
By Imran Mukhtar
Worsening heat extremes in northwest Pakistan have proved a headache - literally - for Ali Bagh Jana this summer.
A combination of heat and water shortages have left her daughter-in-law and her eight grandchildren facing heat rashes, skin allergies and other heat-related problems. Addressing those ailments, at a nearby private clinic, has eaten up most of Jana’s income.
Kenyan women pay harsh price for rising heat: lost pregnancies
By Dominic Kirui
Susan Ng’etich has long picked tea to earn a living in Kenya’s green western highlands, the country’s premier tea-growing region. But rising heat, linked to climate change, is making that job more perilous, especially for pregnant women.
In April, as she worked on hot days picking and transporting tea and carrying out other jobs at home and on her farm, Ng’etich, a 31-year-old mother of two, suffered her first miscarriage.
Less income, more illness: Delhi’s poorest workers struggle in extreme heat
By Aradhna Wal
As temperatures hit 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) on a recent day in New Delhi, Jyoti Ubreja and her two nieces found themselves in an argument with a customer at their dried fruit and nut stand in a historic New Delhi street bazaar.
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Everyone is angrier in this heat - and so are we,” the 36-year-old vendor admitted. But the lower sales were hurting the trio, who said that amid New Delhi’s record-breaking heat this summer they now earn barely more than their costs of commuting the 10 miles to the stand each day.
'I felt like I was cooking': workers
fear for future as record heatwaves scorch Bangladesh
By Mosabber Hossain
As temperatures pushed above 40 degrees Celsius in Bangladesh’s capital in April, Amina Begum - long accustomed to Dhaka’s humid summer heat - began to feel sick.
“I have never seen such heat in my life. I felt like I was cooking inside the fire,” the 45-year-old said, remembering how her skin became dry and red and her urine turned bright orange.