A 40-year-old labourer died on Tuesday in West Bengal’s Bankura district in a heat wave which forced the state government to close schools run and aided by it from June 20 to June 30 in most of the districts in the south, government officials said.
According to officials, Tarapada Maji died while he was working in a drain.
“In our preliminary investigation, we have come to know that he died due to sunstroke,” Bankura’s superintendent of police Sukhendu Hira said.
State education minister Partha Chatterjee said on Monday night that the “condition was worrisome”.
“We also request private schools to announce holidays. Besides, we request the teachers in government-run and aided schools to ensure the syllabus is completed despite this additional holiday,” Chatterjee said.
The minister had said in the afternoon that he was against additional holidays due to the heat.
Several private schools including South Point, DPS Ruby Park (nursery to class 1), Future Foundation, Garden High School, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan also declared additional holidays from Wednesday following the government advisory.
The schools opened about a week ago after a month-long summer vacation. Teachers said they could not recall any recent history of an additional summer holiday during the monsoons in the state.
Roads in many towns such as Durgapur and Kulti in West Burdwan were deserted after 10am as people tried to avoid the sun. Water crisis was reported from Jamuria and Kulti towns in the district.
The temperature in many districts hovered above 40 degree Celsius and officials of the meteorological department officials warned the heat wave could continue for at least a couple of days. Officials in Bankura said the temperature on Tuesday was recorded at 42 degree Celsius - the highest of the season.
Though monsoon has officially arrived in West Bengal, hot winds from the west have got the better of the weak moisture-laden southwesterly winds leading to the high temperature. Five districts in north Bengal witnessed rains but the south has remained dry.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday evening temperature above 40 degree Celcius was recorded from parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Gangetic West Bengal.
“Heatwave conditions are likely to prevail over parts of east India and coastal Andhra Pradesh during next 48 hours,” it said.
The temperature in Kolkata on Tuesday could reach 40 degrees, said the weather office. The state capital’s maximum temperature soared to 40.6 degree Celsius, seven degrees above normal, on Monday. It was the highest in June in a decade.
A heat wave is declared when the temperature rises five degrees above normal.
The temperature was also high in the state’s western part – largely comprising the eastern extension of the Chota Nagpur Plateau. The temperature touched 41.2 degrees Celsius in Asansol, in Bankura it was 42.4 degrees, five degrees above normal, and Burdwan recorded 41.8 degrees.
The high temperatures in Kolkata varied between 33 degree and 37.5 degree Celsius and only on seven-eight days did it rise above 37.5 degrees throughout April and May this year, thanks to frequent norwesters.
In April and May last year, the high temperatures in April and May rose above 37.5 degrees on 25 days.