WEATHER MAYHEM: BRACE FOR HOTTER DAYS AHEAD

AFTER a late start, the rains are lashing Mumbai and its surroundings. The collateral damage is heartrending. The Rumale family, stuck in a halted local train near the suburb of Kalyan, decided to make a dash of it by walking down the track to the next station. It was a decision they will rue all their lives. Grandpa, who was carrying mother Yogita Rumale’s infant baby, lost control in the rain and the baby slipped off and disappeared into a swollen nullah below.

- GURBIR SINGH

NEWSCOPE

Not far away from the rail track tragedy, at Khalapur, Raigad district, a cloudburst of 400mm rain on Wednesday night brought the hill down on Irshalwadi, a small tribal hamlet, wiping out everyone who lived there.

Simultaneously and ironically, it is record-breaking heat that is killing thousands in the US, Europe and Asia. Wildfires in summer and off-season cloudbursts have become common from Canada to Australia; but for the first time extreme weather is making the news ahead of the Ukraine war.

About a third of US’ population is under heatwave alerts. Several cities, including Phoenix, and El Paso, Texas have broken records. In California’s Death Valley, temperatures have been hovering around a killer 54 deg C. The waters off Florida in recent weeks are too hot to swim. Temperatures are threatening the coral reefs off the coast.

Europe is frying second year in a row with the Mediterraneanseeming like an extended Sahara. Greece has shut the Acropolis to tourists during day hours fearing dehydration casualties. Spain’s meteorological service warned of temperatures of between 42 and 45 deg C. Japan has hit a 150-year all-time high.