Wrath of nature

The severe heatwave that affected Pakistan is responsible for the death of over 800 people.

The majority died in government-run hospitals in the port city of Karachi, according to a senior provincial health official.

With above 45 degrees centigrade temperatures and most people fasting during this month of Ramadan, hospitals were battling to treat patients, many labourers.

The crisis was compounded by electricity shortages that crippled the water supply system, impeding the pumping of much needed water to consumers.

According to doctors, temperatures above the normal body heat of 37 degrees puts life at risk unless necessary precautions are taken. That is not always possible, especially among the homeless and the poor.

Climate change is suspected of being behind the heatwave in Pakistan, as it is behind many lethal phenomena elsewhere in the world.

Lack of concern and apathy about global warming, failure to protect the environment and the unchecked use of fossil fuel to generate energy will ensure that more horrendous deaths like the ones in Pakistan will occur.

Most of the world — and definitely the developed nations, the main parties guilty for the change in weather patterns — knows that human activity has wreaked havoc on nature.

Many parts of the world witness flooding, draught, forest fires, earthquakes or tsunamis, yet mankind continues to act as if the planet were a temporary place that has to be exploited to the fullest before one generation dies; the next will manage, and if not, we do not seem to care.

Conference after conference brings heads of states together to discuss the issue, yet the outcome is unchanged. Business as usual till it will be too late.

One just prays that the world wakes up to the danger of climate change before many more people die.

Nature is sending one signal after another. Are we going to pay heed or hope to be spared tragedies like the ones that strike Pakistan or were witnessed elsewhere?