Pakistan heatwave kills 450 people in 4 days

Citizens cool off with water from a leaking pipe. Pic/X

A searing heat wave that has hit Pakistan's biggest city has led to the death of at least 450 people over the last four days, a leading NGO claimed on Wednesday.

The Edhi Foundation said it received at least 427 bodies in the last four days excluding Wednesday, while the Sindh government had on Tuesday released 23 bodies in three government hospitals. Karachi, Pakistan's port city, has been hit by extreme hot weather since Saturday with soaring mercury crossing 40°C for the third consecutive day on Wednesday, temperatures that are too high for a coastal areas.

"We have four mortuaries operating in Karachi and we have reached a stage where there is no more space to keep more bodies in our mortuaries," Faisal Edhi, who heads the foundation, said. "The sad fact is that many of these bodies have come from areas where a lot of load shedding is going on even in this harshest weather," he added. Most of the bodies belonged to homeless people.

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