Hottest Summer in 20 Years : New Delhi Swelters With Record Heat, Desert Dust

Bicycle rickshaw pedalers collapse on their handlebars.

Hindu worshipers keel over dead from heatstrokes as they make their devotional circular routes around temples.

Slum dwellers are so desperate for drinking water that they hold buckets next to leaky fire hoses as exhausted municipal firemen battle the rash of fires that have accompanied the recent, terrible heat wave here.

It is the hottest summer in more than 20 years in one of the hottest big cities in the world. For the past 22 days it has averaged 108 degrees in the Indian capital and neighboring states.

A few days ago it reached 98 degrees--but that was the low, registered at about 4 a.m. The high on the same day was a wilting 114 degrees. One hundred miles away in Agra, home of the white marble Taj Mahal, the thermometer topped 118.

According to doctors at Ram Manohar Hospital here, more than 100 people have died of heatstroke in recent days in New Delhi and surrounding northern India. Indian news agencies are reporting a total death toll from the heat of 246, mostly in neighboring Rajasthan state.

Temperatures, never low anyway in the torrid pre-monsoon weeks of May and early June, have been running between 5 and 15 degrees above normal.

Adding to the misery, there has been scant relief at night, when temperatures can usually be expected to drop a few degrees.

“Even at night, the floor of my house is like fire,” complained Brij Lal, 45, a cook who lives in a mud-floored hut in the old walled city area of the capital. “My children wet their sheets with water, but no one can sleep.”

Fierce Desert Wind

The extreme heat has been accompanied by a fierce hot wind from the Rajasthan Desert that has coated the city with fine red dust. By late afternoon, the dust is so thick that the sun is a gauzy white disc on the horizon.

A columnist for the Indian Express newspaper captured the depressed, post-Armageddon spirit that exists among the city’s 7 million people during these dog days.

“This week,” he wrote, “Delhiites got a taste of what things can be like if there is a nuclear war. The sky was covered with dust, blown from the fringes of Rajasthan by the scalding northwesterlies. As a result, the day’s heat got trapped and was unable to escape into the atmosphere. This is exactly what will happen if there is a nuclear war on a worldwide scale. . . .”

As usual in overpopulated India, with its strained public utilities, the terrible heat has been accompanied by frequent power failures and extreme water shortages.

Water One Hour a Day

Even in middle-class neighborhoods in the southern suburbs, water is often available for only one hour a day.

Without electricity, the relatively well-to-do families are unable to run pumps to draw the water into rooftop water tanks for use during the day. As a result, water is at a premium.

The water shortage has been exacerbated by the severe drought that hit northern India last year after the annual monsoon failed. The monsoon normally brings India 70% of its annual rainfall, and when it did not deliver, water tables dropped.

In one large suburban community, in fact, only half the homes--those sitting at a slightly lower elevation closer by a few feet to the main supply--receive water.

Reservoirs Guarded

In Rajasthan state, water supplies are so low that guards have been posted near reservoirs to prevent “looting” of water. A recent special report on the water shortage in the Times of India newspaper said that in some locations, drinking water was being sold for two rupees (15 cents) a bucket.

“In Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer and Barmer districts,” said the report, “as much as 200 rupees ($15) can change hands for diverting a water tanker to an unscheduled stop.”

Those seeking something more than water are mostly out of luck. The idea of a cold beer to cut the dust and slake the thirst has become a fantasy here for those who cannot afford the price at a large tourist hotel, where some supplies still exist.

The Delhi state liquor store at Yashwant Place has had beer one day in the last two weeks, said its manager, Rajinder Gupta. On that day, he said, all 1,200 bottles were sold in two hours.

Hoping to buy a beer the other day at the Yashwant Place store was tennis pro Manbir Singh. He seemed near desperation when he was told none was available.

“It is 113 degrees outside,” he fumed angrily. “If you can’t get a cold beer, what can you do?”

Good Monsoon Predicted

The only good news to come out of the terrible heat here is that it probably means conditions are nearly ideal for a good monsoon rainy season.

The extreme dry heat over the Indian plains has produced a strong low pressure area, and the steep differential that has been created with neighboring high-pressure areas should result in powerful winds that draw the moisture-laden clouds from the Indian Ocean to produce monsoon conditions.

According to Vasant Gawarikar, secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, “1988 will be a good monsoon year for the country as a whole.”

Indian meteorologists use 15 indicators to predict the size of the anticipated monsoon. This year, for the first time in 33 years, 13 of the 15 indicators point to a good monsoon.

For the agriculture-based Indian economy, the monsoon is welcome news. Stock prices on the Bombay Exchange have already risen sharply as a result of the prediction.

But for the parched population of the capital city and northern India, it promises the prospect of relief in coming weeks--rain.