The deadly heat wave that has plagued Karachi for years has returned even earlier than predicted by the Met office. The mercury soared to 41 degrees in the city today. It has been predicted these conditions will persist until May 4. Last year, 65 Karachiites died during the hot spell, which has now become an annual event. In 2015, over 1,200 people, as well as zoo animals and countless agricultural livestock. 40,000 people were said to have suffered heat stroke and exhaustion. The city was caught so off-guard that morgues ran out of freezer space, and bodies had to be left out in the open.
That was four years ago. Since then, Karachi has learnt to better prepare itself for the phenomenon. Heatstroke wards have been set up in government hospitals and a state of emergency declared as well. Heatstroke camps have also been set up across the city.
While commendable, this will not be enough. Karachi is still a concrete jungle devoid of any greenery. The never-ending asphalt and concrete have turned the metropolis into a heat trap. With the country’s population continuing to boom, and Sindh remaining largely undeveloped, it is likely that Karachi will remain an urbanisation disaster. Meanwhile, global temperatures will continue to rise because of climate change, making such heat waves longer, more frequent, and more intense.
In short, what is needed is a long term strategy. At the local level, Karachi needs to reclaim land for green spaces and trees that can absorb some of the heat trapped in the city’s vast concrete networks. At the federal level, Pakistan needs a long-term strategy on climate change, which is the biggest threat facing the country today, along with the rest of humanity. It should be noted that in 2015, incumbent Prime Minister Imran Khan had called Pakistan’s climate policies “a joke”. Now that he finds himself in office, perhaps he should be the PM to do something about the problem he pointed out three years ago. *