Yakubabad: Heavy pregnant sonari Working in the scorching sun in the fields laden with bright yellow melons JacobabadWhich became the hottest city on Earth last month.
Her 17-year-old neighbor Vaderi, who gave birth a few weeks ago, is working in temperatures in excess of 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), and her newborn is lying on a blanket in the shade nearby, so that when she can feed him So he could feed her. cries
“When summer is coming and we’re pregnant, we feel stressed,” said Sonari, who is in her mid-20s.
These women of southern Pakistan and millions of others like them around the world are at the cusp of climate change.
Pregnant women with prolonged heat exposure have a higher risk of complications, found an analysis of 70 studies conducted since the mid-1990s on the issue.
According to the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education meta-analysis at Columbia University, for every 1 °C in temperature rise, the number of stillbirths and premature deliveries increases by about 5%, which is recognized by several research institutions globally. was done and published. In the British Medical Journal in September 2020.
cecilia sorensenThe director of the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University said the impact of global warming on women’s health was “highly under-documented”, partly because extreme Heat exacerbates other conditions.
“We’re not linking the health effects on women and that’s often because we’re not collecting data on it,” she said. “And often women in poverty are not seeking medical care.”
“Heat is a huge deal for pregnant women.”
Women are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures in poor countries on the climate change front as many have no choice but to work shortly after their pregnancies and give birth, as do more than a dozen women in the Jacobabad region. Half a dozen development and human rights experts, according to interviews with residents.
Socially conservative Pakistan – and many other places – further increase the risk, typically cooking family meals over hot stoves or open fires, often in cramped rooms with no ventilation or cooling.
“If you’re inside cooking next to a hot open fire, you have that heat burden in addition to the ambient heat which makes things more dangerous,” Sorenson said.
extreme humid summer events
South Asia has experienced unseasonably hot temperatures in recent months. The extreme heat that scorched Pakistan and India in April was 30 times more likely due to climate change, according to scientists at World Weather Attribution, an international research collaboration. Global temperatures have risen by about 1.2 °C above pre-industrial levels.
As the temperature continues to rise, so will the extreme heat.
Jacobabad’s nearly 200,000 residents are well aware of its reputation as one of the hottest cities in the world.
“If we go to hell, we’ll take a blanket,” is a common joke said in the area.
In some places there is more punishment. Last month, temperatures reached 51 Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) on May 14, which local meteorological officials were highly unusual for that time of year. Tropical rains can also cause increased humidity later in the year, along with warmer winds from the Arabian Sea.
The more humid it is, the harder it is for people to cool down through sweat. Such conditions are measured by “wet bulb temperature”, which is taken by a thermometer wrapped in a wet cloth. Wet bulb temperatures of 35C or more are considered the limit of human existence.
According to regional weather data, Jacobabad has crossed that limit at least twice since 2010. And, globally, such “extremely humid heat events” have more than doubled in frequency over the past four decades, according to a May 2020 study in the journal Science.
Sonari, who is in her 20s, and Waderi work in watermelon fields about 10 km from the center of Jacobabad, along with about a dozen other women, many of whom are pregnant.
They begin work every day at 6 a.m. with a short afternoon break for household chores and cooking, and work until sunset before returning to work. They describe leg pain, fainting episodes, and discomfort during breastfeeding.
“It’s like no one sees them, no one cares for them,” aid worker Liza KHAN More widely spoken of the plight of many women in Jacobabad and the wider Sindh region, which borders Pakistan and India.
Khan’s phone rings incessantly as she visits one of three heatstroke response centers she helped set up in recent weeks as part of her work with a nonprofit group called the Community Development Foundation Is.
With a degree in finance, Khan lives in colder cities across Pakistan, but returned to her hometown because she wanted to be a voice for women in the conservative sector.
“Nowadays I am working 24/7,” said the 22-year-old, adding that her organization was increasingly linking the effects of extreme heat with other social and health issues affecting women.
in the face of sorrow
The harsh conditions facing many women were brought to tragic attention on 14 May, with day temperatures reaching 51°C in Jacobabad, making it the hottest city in the world at the time.
Nazia, a young mother of five, was preparing lunch for her cousins. But with no air conditioning or fan in her kitchen, she collapsed and was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead of a suspected heat stroke.
District health officials did not respond to requests for comment about Jacobabad’s record of heat-related deaths in recent years, or Nazia’s case in particular.
A relative said her body was buried the next day in her native village and her baby, the youngest of a year old, who was still breastfed, regularly cries for his mother.
Widespread poverty and frequent power outages mean that many people cannot use air conditioning or the occasional fan for cooling.
Possible strategies suggested by experts include providing clean-energy stoves in place of open-fire cooking, providing women’s medical and social services during the early morning or evening hours, when it is colder and removing solar radiation. This includes replacing tin roofs white with cooler materials. House.
climate change minister sheri rehman Women are bearing the brunt of rising temperatures as they scorch the country, telling Reuters that future climate change policies are needed to address the specific needs of women.
“A megatrend like climate change … poses a significant threat to the well-being of women with disabilities in rural areas and urban slums,” she said. “Pakistani women, especially those on the margins, will be most affected.”
What surprises some in Jacobabad is that Pakistan is responsible for a fraction of the greenhouse gases released in the industrial age and is now warming the atmosphere.
City Deputy Commissioner Hafeez Syal said, “We are not contributing to the worsening, but as far as the suffering is concerned, we are on the front lines.”
No water, no power, we pray
In a residential area of town, a cart of donkeys with blue plastic jerrycans is parked near the entrance to the Warren-like streets leading to a cluster of houses. The driver of the vehicle runs back and forth carrying a container of 20 liters of water from one of the few dozen private pumps in the city.
Most of Jacobabad’s residents depend on such water distribution, which can cost between one-fifth and one-eighth of a household’s meager income. Still, this is often not enough, and some families are forced to ration.
Six-month-old baby’s voice for young mother Razia Desire Crying in the heat of the afternoon was enough to persuade her to pour some of her precious water over the child. Then she made Tamannaah sit in front of a fan, and the child looked calm as she played with her mother’s dupatta.
Local officials said the water shortage was partly due to power cuts, meaning the water could not be filtered and sent through pipes throughout the city. There is a severe water shortage across Sindh, with climate change minister Rahman flagging a reduction of up to 60% in the province’s major dams and canals.
Rubina, Razia’s neighbour, fried onions and okra over an open fire, explaining that she usually felt dizzy in the heat and tried to soak herself in water every time she cooked to avoid fainting. Was.
However there was not always enough water to do this.
“Most of the time, it ends before it’s time to buy more and we must wait,” Rubina said, watching her children and grandchildren share a cup of water closely. “On hot days with no water, electricity, we wake up and the only thing we do is pray to God.”
Her 17-year-old neighbor Vaderi, who gave birth a few weeks ago, is working in temperatures in excess of 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), and her newborn is lying on a blanket in the shade nearby, so that when she can feed him So he could feed her. cries
“When summer is coming and we’re pregnant, we feel stressed,” said Sonari, who is in her mid-20s.
These women of southern Pakistan and millions of others like them around the world are at the cusp of climate change.
Pregnant women with prolonged heat exposure have a higher risk of complications, found an analysis of 70 studies conducted since the mid-1990s on the issue.
According to the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education meta-analysis at Columbia University, for every 1 °C in temperature rise, the number of stillbirths and premature deliveries increases by about 5%, which is recognized by several research institutions globally. was done and published. In the British Medical Journal in September 2020.
cecilia sorensenThe director of the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education at Columbia University said the impact of global warming on women’s health was “highly under-documented”, partly because extreme Heat exacerbates other conditions.
“We’re not linking the health effects on women and that’s often because we’re not collecting data on it,” she said. “And often women in poverty are not seeking medical care.”
“Heat is a huge deal for pregnant women.”
Women are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures in poor countries on the climate change front as many have no choice but to work shortly after their pregnancies and give birth, as do more than a dozen women in the Jacobabad region. Half a dozen development and human rights experts, according to interviews with residents.
Socially conservative Pakistan – and many other places – further increase the risk, typically cooking family meals over hot stoves or open fires, often in cramped rooms with no ventilation or cooling.
“If you’re inside cooking next to a hot open fire, you have that heat burden in addition to the ambient heat which makes things more dangerous,” Sorenson said.
extreme humid summer events
South Asia has experienced unseasonably hot temperatures in recent months. The extreme heat that scorched Pakistan and India in April was 30 times more likely due to climate change, according to scientists at World Weather Attribution, an international research collaboration. Global temperatures have risen by about 1.2 °C above pre-industrial levels.
As the temperature continues to rise, so will the extreme heat.
Jacobabad’s nearly 200,000 residents are well aware of its reputation as one of the hottest cities in the world.
“If we go to hell, we’ll take a blanket,” is a common joke said in the area.
In some places there is more punishment. Last month, temperatures reached 51 Celsius (124 Fahrenheit) on May 14, which local meteorological officials were highly unusual for that time of year. Tropical rains can also cause increased humidity later in the year, along with warmer winds from the Arabian Sea.
The more humid it is, the harder it is for people to cool down through sweat. Such conditions are measured by “wet bulb temperature”, which is taken by a thermometer wrapped in a wet cloth. Wet bulb temperatures of 35C or more are considered the limit of human existence.
According to regional weather data, Jacobabad has crossed that limit at least twice since 2010. And, globally, such “extremely humid heat events” have more than doubled in frequency over the past four decades, according to a May 2020 study in the journal Science.
Sonari, who is in her 20s, and Waderi work in watermelon fields about 10 km from the center of Jacobabad, along with about a dozen other women, many of whom are pregnant.
They begin work every day at 6 a.m. with a short afternoon break for household chores and cooking, and work until sunset before returning to work. They describe leg pain, fainting episodes, and discomfort during breastfeeding.
“It’s like no one sees them, no one cares for them,” aid worker Liza KHAN More widely spoken of the plight of many women in Jacobabad and the wider Sindh region, which borders Pakistan and India.
Khan’s phone rings incessantly as she visits one of three heatstroke response centers she helped set up in recent weeks as part of her work with a nonprofit group called the Community Development Foundation Is.
With a degree in finance, Khan lives in colder cities across Pakistan, but returned to her hometown because she wanted to be a voice for women in the conservative sector.
“Nowadays I am working 24/7,” said the 22-year-old, adding that her organization was increasingly linking the effects of extreme heat with other social and health issues affecting women.
in the face of sorrow
The harsh conditions facing many women were brought to tragic attention on 14 May, with day temperatures reaching 51°C in Jacobabad, making it the hottest city in the world at the time.
Nazia, a young mother of five, was preparing lunch for her cousins. But with no air conditioning or fan in her kitchen, she collapsed and was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead of a suspected heat stroke.
District health officials did not respond to requests for comment about Jacobabad’s record of heat-related deaths in recent years, or Nazia’s case in particular.
A relative said her body was buried the next day in her native village and her baby, the youngest of a year old, who was still breastfed, regularly cries for his mother.
Widespread poverty and frequent power outages mean that many people cannot use air conditioning or the occasional fan for cooling.
Possible strategies suggested by experts include providing clean-energy stoves in place of open-fire cooking, providing women’s medical and social services during the early morning or evening hours, when it is colder and removing solar radiation. This includes replacing tin roofs white with cooler materials. House.
climate change minister sheri rehman Women are bearing the brunt of rising temperatures as they scorch the country, telling Reuters that future climate change policies are needed to address the specific needs of women.
“A megatrend like climate change … poses a significant threat to the well-being of women with disabilities in rural areas and urban slums,” she said. “Pakistani women, especially those on the margins, will be most affected.”
What surprises some in Jacobabad is that Pakistan is responsible for a fraction of the greenhouse gases released in the industrial age and is now warming the atmosphere.
City Deputy Commissioner Hafeez Syal said, “We are not contributing to the worsening, but as far as the suffering is concerned, we are on the front lines.”
No water, no power, we pray
In a residential area of town, a cart of donkeys with blue plastic jerrycans is parked near the entrance to the Warren-like streets leading to a cluster of houses. The driver of the vehicle runs back and forth carrying a container of 20 liters of water from one of the few dozen private pumps in the city.
Most of Jacobabad’s residents depend on such water distribution, which can cost between one-fifth and one-eighth of a household’s meager income. Still, this is often not enough, and some families are forced to ration.
Six-month-old baby’s voice for young mother Razia Desire Crying in the heat of the afternoon was enough to persuade her to pour some of her precious water over the child. Then she made Tamannaah sit in front of a fan, and the child looked calm as she played with her mother’s dupatta.
Local officials said the water shortage was partly due to power cuts, meaning the water could not be filtered and sent through pipes throughout the city. There is a severe water shortage across Sindh, with climate change minister Rahman flagging a reduction of up to 60% in the province’s major dams and canals.
Rubina, Razia’s neighbour, fried onions and okra over an open fire, explaining that she usually felt dizzy in the heat and tried to soak herself in water every time she cooked to avoid fainting. Was.
However there was not always enough water to do this.
“Most of the time, it ends before it’s time to buy more and we must wait,” Rubina said, watching her children and grandchildren share a cup of water closely. “On hot days with no water, electricity, we wake up and the only thing we do is pray to God.”