Eleven people die of sunstroke near Mumbai after open-air award function
World
The event was held outdoors in the afternoon in Khargar, where the temperature recorded was 38 C.
MUMBAI (Reuters) – At least eleven people died on Sunday after suffering from sunstroke at an event attended by India's home minister on the outskirts of Mumbai, the chief minister of Maharashtra state said.
Hundreds of thousands of people attended an award function on Sunday afternoon where federal home minister Amit Shah presented an award to a well-known social activist, on the outskirts of the country's financial capital of Mumbai in Maharashtra.
The event was held outdoors in the afternoon in Khargar, where the maximum temperature recorded was 38 degrees Celsius (100.4°F), normal for this time of the year.
Around 50 people were admitted to hospital after the event and 11 had died, Maharashtra's chief minister, Eknath Shinde, told reporters late on Sunday night.
India is likely to experience heat waves between March and May, the weather office said in February this year.
The Indian media reported the district collector of Raigad, Yogesh Mhase Patil, as saying that the death toll on Sunday night had reached 11 while 50 others were hospitalised. Police sources said that three patients in hospital are on the ventilator.
The Maharashtra government had planned the function in a sprawling 208-acre open ground in Khargar in Navi Mumbai, and there were announcements about how 2 million followers of the award recipient, spiritual leader Appasaheb Dharmadhikari, were expected to attend. The Shinde-Fadnavis government left no stone unturned to make the show a grand spectacle, with Union home minister Amit Shah flying down specially to confer the award on Dharmadhikari.
