India received its first monsoon showers on Thursday in the remote north-east region, officials said, bringing hopes of relief from a devastating heat spell that has killed at least 1 347 people.
Weather officials said isolated monsoon rains occurred in parts of five north-eastern states — Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh — and warned of heavy showers in the next 48 hours.
”Yes, we have had the first monsoon showers in the north-east,” said SK Subramanium, deputy director general of the Indian Meteorological Department in New Delhi.
Normally the monsoon rains hit the southern state of Kerala in the first week of June, while a second front arrives in the north-east a few days later.
Subramanium said the monsoon was expected to arrive in Kerala in three to five days, but that this year the rain was likely to be slightly below average.
Officials also welcomed the news of the monsoon’s arrival as it is crucial for sustaining agricultural production, which provides a livelihood to two-thirds of the population.
Delayed monsoons resulted in a drought last year in several states which clipped annual economic growth and depleted food stocks.
People across the country were also desperately waiting for the cooling effect of the rains, particularly in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, which has borne the brunt of the sizzling weather with temperatures touching 50 degrees Celsius.
Officials said 26 more people had died in the state taking the toll to 1 235 in the past two weeks.
”Things could cool down slightly with thunder showers likely in some places over the next 24 hours including the Andhra Pradesh capital Hyderabad,” CVV Bhadram, director of the state’s Meteorological Centre in Hyderabad said.
Scores of poor people have been dying in the state as they brave the blistering heat to work in their farms or earn money through labouring.
State Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has set up an emergency task force to investigate the reasons for the high death toll, which also happened last year when 1 037 died of heat.
Andhra Pradesh has one of the highest concentrations of India’s poorest people. Almost 12-million people, or 15% of the population, live below the government designated poverty line.
Elsewhere in the country, the heat has killed at least 112 people.
In the northern state of Kashmir, the winter capital Jammu recorded the highest temperature since 1972 — 45,2 degrees Celsius.
Rains are not expected to arrive there for up to a week.
The hot weather has resulted in frequent power cuts and erratic water supply in many parts of India including the capital New Delhi.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, 62 people have died from a heatwave in the past week, while more than 50 have been killed in Pakistan. – Sapa-AFP