The cost of India’s unbearable heat

The Post’s Annie Gowen walks us through the immediate effects of climate change on India’s megacities and what the future looks like for residents of Kolkata facing record-breaking heat. 

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After three days of no power this April, the people of Kasia Bagan had had enough. Temperatures were reaching record highs, with no AC to help. Yet down the main lane of the neighborhood, the Quest Mall towered, humming with electrical power. 

Residents such as Sana Mumtaz, a divorced mother of three who lives on the lane with eight relatives in one room, felt her neighbors’ anger growing out of control.

The news of heat-related deaths in the neighborhood spread, resulting in protestors occupying the Quest Mall. Mumtaz, facing heat-related illnesses while providing for her family of nine, felt frustrated.

“It is so hot,” she said, “we cannot survive this way.”

The suburbs of Kolkata are significantly cooler while the temperatures of poorer neighborhoods such as Kasia Bagan remain unbearable. As the rich continue to adopt air conditioning and the poor do not, access to air conditioning during extreme heat waves makes the difference between life and death.

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