Power cuts make hottest day worse

It was a sweat of a Tuesday for the Capital which at 45.1 degrees Celsius recorded the hottest day of the season, pushing up power demand to summer’s high and leaving many parts of the city powerless for hours at end.

It was a sweat of a Tuesday for the Capital which at 45.1 degrees Celsius recorded the hottest day of the season, pushing up power demand to summer’s high and leaving many parts of the city powerless for hours at end.

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While the maximum temperature was five degrees above normal, the minimum at 28° Celsius was a notch above what is usual for the season. The Palam station recorded a maximum of 46.2°C.

The temperature recorded at Safdarjung is the one that is considered for Delhi. Gurgaon was slightly hotter at 45.2°C.

Wednesday will offer no relief, with maximum and minimum temperatures expected to be 45°C and 29°C. Though a slight dip in temperature is expected over the weekend, the heat wave will continue for the remaining part of May.

With mercury on a high, power demand, too, peaked for the season at 4,949 MW and many parts of the city were left powerless for hours.

North Delhi residents were the worst hit, forced to go without power for more than four hours. Parts of Rohini, Pitampura, Keshavpuram faced outages from 1am to 5am. Mayur Vihar Phase I, II and New Ashok Nagar in east Delhi, too, faced power cuts.

“Since last two weeks, we have already seen three cases of kidney failure due to excessive water loss,” said Dr SP Byotra, chairman, department of medicine, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.