Landfill fires are nothing unusual, but a heatwave made for a spectacular sight as one mountain of trash in New Delhi, the Bhalswa landfill, glowed bright in the dark and filled the day with acrid smoke. NBC News:
DW.com reports that the entire country is reeling under the heat.
The heat may also be exacerbated by urban pollution, with black carbon and dust absorbing sunlight and further warming the cities. India is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in February that with just 1.5C of warming, temperatures could expect an annual repeat of the 2015 heatwave, in which temperatures hit 44C and thousands of people died. This March was the hottest in over 100 years of record-taking in India, and April has been similar.
