The Indian heatwave -05/22/2016

Indian roads become molten seas of tar as deadly heat wave continues

9News,

21 May, 2016

India remains in the grip of a deadly heatwave that this week peaked at blistering 51 degrees in Rajasthan, a record temperature for the subcontinent.

Further south, however, temperatures have been just as extreme – including in Gujarat where conditions are so bad that bats are falling lifeless from the trees in the sizzling heat.

Fresh video from Gujarat's Valsad District shows pedestrians becoming stuck to the road as they try to cross, with the bitumen melting into something akin to a sticky fly strip. One fellow can be seen losing his thong in the scalding journey from kerb to kerb.

May 22, 2016: Indian authorities have began preemptively digging graves ahead of the nation's impending severe heat ave.

Temperatures in Gujarat have reportedly topped 48 degrees, and though no official death toll has been released, some 2400 perished during last year's onslaught, an unfortunate fact of life in the lead up to the monsoon.

In Pakistan mass graves are being dug in grim preparation for the wave of deaths that will inevitably follow the relentless heat.

"Thank god we are better prepared than last year," grave digger Shahid Baloch told Channel 4 News.

"God forbid it happens but we have already dug graves to accommodate 300 bodies."

Rajasthan's new record of 51 degrees beats out the city's previous top temperature by just 0.4 degrees, but still falls a good few points shy of the hottest temperature