India’s heat wave is the longest ever to hit the country, a government weather expert said today, warning that people will face increasingly oppressive temperatures.

Parts of northern India have been gripped by a heat wave since mid-May, with temperatures soaring above 45 degrees Celsius.

“This has been the longest heat wave – about 24 days in different parts of the country,” India Meteorological Department (IMD) chief Mrutiunjay Mohapatra said in an interview with the Indian Express daily.

The mercury is expected to fall as the annual monsoon rains move north this month, but Mohapatra warned of worse to come.

“Heat waves will be more frequent, longer and more intense, if precautions or preventive measures are not taken,” he said. India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases but has committed to achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2070 – two decades behind much of the industrialized West.

For now, it relies heavily on coal to generate electricity.

“Human activities, population growth, industrialization and transport mechanisms lead to increased concentration of carbon monoxide, methane and chlorocarbons,” said Mohapatra.

“We are not only endangering ourselves, but also our future generations.”

Scientific research shows that climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.

The latest heat wave saw temperatures in New Delhi match the capital’s previous record of 49.2 degrees Celsius measured in 2022.

On May 29, an automated weather station in the Delhi suburb of Mungeshpur recorded a high temperature of 52.9 degrees Celsius, but the temperature was the result of a faulty sensor.

Elsewhere in Delhi, 17 other city stations touched a maximum temperature of 49 degrees Celsius on the same day.