KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) – A Pakistani health official says the devastating heat wave that struck the country last weekend is slowly subsiding but that the death toll is still climbing, with 860 people now reported to have died.
Jam Mehtab Hussain, the provincial health minister in the southern Sindh province, says people are still being admitted to hospitals with heat-related ailments – though in less numbers than in previous days, when dehydrated patients lay in hospital corridors and outside on the streets as overwhelmed medical staff struggled to cope with the disaster.
Husain says temperatures on Thursday dropped to 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in Karachi, worst hit by the heat wave.
On Sunday, temperatures had reached 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.