India drought: Boy drowns in well while fetching water
The year 2016 is being declared as the hottest in India.
MAHARASHTRA (Web Desk / Reuters) - A 11-year-old boy died after drowning into a deep well as he slipped while fetching water in a drought-affected area in India s western state of Maharashtra.
TV pictures showed villagers pulling Sachin Kengar out of the well in Beed district on Thursday and trying unsuccessfully to revive him.
Earlier this week a 11-year-old girl died of heatstroke while collecting water from a village pump in Beed.
Some 330 million people are affected by the ongoing drought in India with the number likely to increase.
The government says nearly 256 districts across India, home to nearly a quarter of the population, have been hit.
Beed is one of the one worst affected districts: half of its 1,403 villages are facing an acute water crisis.
More than 100 feared dead due to heatwave
The year 2016 is being declared as the hottest in India.
More than 100 people are feared dead in India in an early-summer heat wave which forced schools to close and halted outdoor work like construction, government officials said on Thursday.
India s hottest months are May and June, but some states have already registered temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), forcing authorities to take emergency steps.
In the southern Indian state of Telangana, 45 people have died from heat exposure, and another 17 in Andhra Pradesh, officials said. Some 43 were believed to have died in neighboring Odisha, although an official there said each of the deaths was being investigated.
Y.K. Reddy, a director at the Indian Meteorological Department, said Telangana has recorded its highest April temperatures since at least 2006.
Reddy said there were worries the death toll in Telangana could rise and his department was issuing heat-wave warnings to advise people to stay indoors.
Schools in Telangana were shut last week two weeks ahead of their summer holidays. As an emergency measure, Odisha has ordered schools to remain closed until April 26 and banned construction work during the hottest times of day.
Some small-scale businesses were already suffering.
"I am closing my shop before noon because it is too hot," said Tulu Sahu, a small grocery seller in Bhubaneshwar city in Odisha. "You cannot stay in the shop."
