MEXICO CITY- Mexico has recorded 48 deaths due to the intense heat season it has suffered since last March, the Government reported this Friday, at a time when scientists warn that temperature records could rise in the coming days.
An epidemiological report from the Ministry of Health, with data up to May 21, also details that 956 people have suffered various effects due to high temperatures.
“In the current hot season (which began on March 17 and will last until October 5), there is a total of (…) 48 deaths nationwide,” says the report sent to the press by the Ministry of Health.
In 2023, a record number of deaths was set with 419 in the almost eight months that the hot season lasts in Mexico, according to official statistics.
“This heat situation (…) is exceptional,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said in his press conference this Friday.
Natural phenomenon
“It is a very regrettable natural phenomenon, which does have to do with climate change,” added the president, emphasizing that high temperatures accompanied by little wind exacerbate the pollution problem in Mexico City.
The state of Veracruz (east), with an extensive coastline on the Gulf of Mexico, registers the highest number of deaths, with 14, followed by Tabasco (south), San Luis Potosí (north) and Tamaulipas (northeast) with eight each. one.
According to the National Water Commission (meteorological authority), on May 9 in a dozen Mexican towns thermometers reached levels never seen before.
Bad prognosis
Scientists from the state-run National Autonomous University of Mexico warned on Wednesday that in the next two weeks the heat could intensify even more to break historical records.
2024 is headed “to be the warmest year in history,” Francisco Estrada, coordinator of the university’s Climate Change Research Program, said at a press conference.
Mexico City and its metropolitan area, where some 22 million people live, have accumulated two records this season that broke the previous record from 1998: 34.2ºC on April 15 and 34.3ºC on May 9.
Estrada stressed that we are experiencing a global phenomenon, since 47 countries are suffering from high temperatures derived from global warming.
The intense heat, which has exhausted bottles of water and bags of ice in businesses in the Mexican capital, combined with the lack of wind, has triggered pollution in the megacity where some 6.5 million vehicles circulate.
Due to this, a state of alert has been declared on days with high pollution rates, which has taken more than 20% of the cars off the road.
The capital authorities issue constant recommendations due to heat and pollution, such as staying indoors, using sunscreen and hydrating.
Affected animals
One of the most dramatic cases is the death of dozens of howler monkeys in the jungle of the states of Tabasco and Chiapas (south), apparently due to temperatures exceeding 45ºC.
Víctor Morato, director of a veterinary hospital in Comalcalo, Tabasco, explained that the animals faint from the heat and fall from trees 15 to 20 meters high.
“When they arrived here in their agony, they extended their hand to us as if to say ‘help me’. I got a lump in my throat,” commented this week the doctor, who has treated eight specimens, some of them with a body temperature of 43ºC.
Source: AFP
