Karachi readies graves, hospitals, in case heat wave hits again *
 

KARACHI: Pakistani grave digger Shahid Baloch is taking ** chances. Like many people in the port city of Karachi, he was caught out by the severity of last summer's heat wave which killed more than 1,300 people, and has hired a digger to excavate three elongated trenches big e**ugh for 300 bodies.

"Thanks to God, we are better prepared this year," said Baloch, 28, who works with three brothers at the vast Karachi cemetery run by the charitable organisation Edhi Foundation.

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When the heat wave struck in the summer of 2015, hospitals, morgues and graveyards in the city of 20 million people were overwhelmed, and drug addicts, day labourers and the elderly were the biggest victims of the searing heat.

Temperatures hit 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit), their highest since 1981 and above **rmal summer levels of around 37C (99F).

Intervention by the army and charity groups staved off an even worse disaster, locals said, but the crisis exposed the shortcomings of Pakistani emergency services in coping with environmental disasters that scientists say will become more common in the future.

Pakistan's meteorological ****** is **t predicting a repeat of last year's extreme conditions, but, like Baloch in the cemetery, officials are preparing for the worst just in case.

"It will **t get out of control the way it happen last year," said Karachi Commissioner Asif Hyder Shah, adding that nearly 60 hospitals **w have spare capacity for 1,850 heat wave patients.

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Last summer patients slept on ward floors and long queues formed outside Karachi's main state hospitals at the peak of the heat wave.

Shah said nearly 200 first response centres have been set up across the city, offering basic heat-stroke treatment to swiftly stabilise patients. There are also 700 makeshift relief centres, dishing out drinking water and rehydration salts.

"This will save lives. It's a comfort," said street vendor Muhammad Mahmood, 32, after downing a cup of water at one centre. Next to him, children in school uniforms queued to quench their thirst.

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Edhi Foundation, at the heart of efforts to limit the suffering caused by the heat wave last year, said it was expanding its huge fleet of ambulances, anchoring extra shelves in its morgue freezer and buying ice machines to keep patients and corpses cool.

Last summer, the Edhi morgue ran out of freezer space after about 650 bodies were brought in the space of a few days. Ambulances left decaying corpses outside in sweltering heat.

UNDER-INVESTMENT HAMPERS PLANS

Similar macabre scenes plagued Karachi's cemeteries, where grave diggers refused to work in the baking sun and charged up to five times **rmal rates for burial plots.

"People were **t able to buy those graves," said Faisal Edhi, managing trustee of the Edhi Foundation. "They buried their dead in their relatives' graves."

Efforts to prepare for extreme heat have been limited by decades of under-investment in Pakistan's crumbling electricity grid and water infrastructure, leaving the sprawling city vulnerable in times of crisis.

The problem last year was compounded by power cuts which left people unable to cool themselves with fans and air conditioners, particularly affecting those unable to afford generators.

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