New Delhi, April 10, 2025 — India soaring heat is killing far more people than official numbers suggest according to new research that reveals serious flaws in how heatwave-related deaths are tracked and reported.
Experts say that doctors often fail to list extreme heat as a cause of death, instead writing down only immediate medical reasons like heart failure or dehydration. This leads to a critical underestimation of the true toll, which in turn affects how governments respond and allocate resources to tackle rising temperatures.
Between 2000 and 2020, different government bodies reported vastly different figures from around 10,500 to over 20,000 deaths from heat-related causes. But these numbers pale in comparison to peer-reviewed studies, which suggest tens of thousands may be dying silently in each heatwave.
A new study by researchers Ashok Gadgil and Piyush Narang, using district-level data and climate mapping, estimates that a single five-day heatwave could result in around 30,000 deaths across India. If such events occur five times in a summer as is increasingly common this could mean over 1.5 lakh deaths per year. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat are among the worst-hit states.
Major cities like Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Prayagraj, Patna, Kanpur, and Lucknow see over 180 deaths each during a prolonged heatwave. But the real danger may be in rural districts, where healthcare is weaker, incomes are lower, and many people work outdoors under the scorching sun.
The researchers urge immediate action: public cooling spaces, better medical readiness, awareness campaigns, and changes to work and school timings. Proven strategies, like Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan, have already shown they can save lives reducing excess deaths by 27% in some areas.
Extreme heat should be treated as a recurring climate disaster, not just an uncomfortable weather event. With better data and planning, many of these deaths can be prevented. The time to act, they warn is now before even more lives are lost in the heat.