BANDA, India – In this small northern Indian town that has repeatedly claimed the title of the hottest place on Earth in 2024, heat does not fade when the sun sets. It lingers, thick and suffocating, through sweltering nights where temperatures rarely drop low enough to let residents recover from the day’s brutal warmth. Compounded by chronic, unreliable power outages that leave even basic ceiling fans useless for thousands of households, surviving each 24-hour cycle has become a daily test of endurance for Banda’s population, a stark example of how climate change is reshaping life for vulnerable communities across the globe.
Anthropogenic global warming, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels including coal, oil and gas, has supercharged heat waves across South Asia, making them more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting than historical averages. Banda, located in the populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh, sits among the regions most exposed to extreme heat risk. Just one year ago, a severe multi-day heat wave across the state claimed the lives of at least 119 people.
This year, the town has already hit 48.2°C (118.8°F) in May, marking one of dozens of occasions it recorded India’s highest daily temperature. According to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian who specializes in tracking global extreme weather events, Banda ranked as the warmest location on the entire planet seven times in 2024, most of those instances falling in April. While temperatures have dipped slightly since the peak of pre-monsoon heat, the arrival of seasonal rains has pushed humidity to stifling levels, leaving little relief for local residents. In June, an Associated Press reporting team visited Banda to document how people navigate an average day of extreme heat across every hour.
### Early Morning: Working Through Sweltering Heat Before Temperatures Spike
When most of Banda is still asleep, 70-year-old vegetable market laborer Munni Devi and her four sons are already on the job loading and unloading produce. Even at 4 a.m., the thermometer already reads 30°C (86°F). Workers rush to transfer crates of tomatoes, jackfruit and other fresh produce from large delivery trucks to smaller carts for distribution to local neighborhood shops, moving quickly to finish the bulk of their work before midday heat becomes unmanageable.
Devi says each year brings hotter conditions than the last, and 2024 has been the most severe she can remember. The physical labor of loading and unloading heavy crates is grueling in any weather, but during heat waves it becomes dangerous. Still, like most low-wage workers in the town, Devi and her family cannot afford to take a day off to avoid the heat. “Everyone feels the heat, but because of our circumstances, we have to bear it,” she explained.
Many local shoppers also wake early to finish their grocery runs before temperatures climb, keeping the market busy through the early morning. Devi and her sons work until lunchtime before returning home, but even there, relief is hard to find. Unreliable grid power means outages can stretch for hours at a time, leaving fans non-functional. To cool down her grandchildren, Devi sprays them down with a garden hose every single day. “If there is no power, even the ceiling fans don’t work. Sometimes there is no power for hours,” she said.
### Afternoon: A Local Activist Works to Shield Wildlife From Deadly Heat
By mid-afternoon, Banda’s paved streets bake under the relentless sun, and any resident who can afford to stay indoors remains inside to avoid exposure. Still, street vendors and auto rickshaw drivers remain out in the open, desperate to earn what extra income they can. For 70-year-old animal lover Shobharam Kashyap, this time of year brings non-stop work to protect local bird populations from the extreme conditions.
Working out of a small home workshop, Kashyap builds handcrafted wooden birdhouses that he and a network of local volunteers install across the town. To date, the group has placed more than 15,000 birdhouses on tree trunks and building walls, giving wild birds a shaded, cool place to escape the midday sun. Kashyap paints most of the structures green, a color he says birds seem to prefer for nesting and resting. He also keeps full clay water bowls around his property and across nearby neighborhoods, giving birds access to fresh drinking water and a place to cool off.
The work, he says, carries on longstanding cultural traditions of caring for animals in Indian communities. “Our culture has long encouraged feeding birds. Women visiting temples traditionally offer rice. Neither the priest nor the deity consumes it — the birds do,” he explained.
### Evening: Surge in Heat-Related Illnesses Overwhelms Local Hospitals
As day turns to evening, Banda’s main public hospital, one of the largest regional medical centers, sees a constant stream of patients suffering from heat-related illnesses. Cases ranging from minor heat exhaustion to life-threatening heatstroke fill waiting rooms and ward corridors, with patients packed shoulder-to-shoulder on benches while relatives fan sick family members with hand-cut paper. Medical staff move quickly between beds, delivering intravenous fluids to treat severe dehydration.
Dr. Abhishek Pranayami, the hospital’s chief medical officer, says the facility sees a sharp uptick in heat-related patients every summer, and the caseload grows larger each year. Most patients are treated for dehydration, diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain — all conditions that become far more common as temperatures rise. While many patients recover within a few days, others require extended care, putting immense strain on the facility’s limited resources. “Pressure is quite high on us and the staff,” he said.
### Night: Residents Sleep in Public Spaces to Escape Stifling Indoor Heat
Even after the sun sets, Banda’s heat does not break. Young boys playing pickup cricket wrap their water bottles in old tattered cloth to keep the water cool for hours. For thousands of residents whose small homes have absorbed all day’s heat and lack consistent power for cooling, the only option to get any sleep is to seek refuge outdoors.
Banda’s railway station has become a popular overnight spot for heat-weary residents. Its open concrete platforms and occasional passing breeze are far more comfortable than cramped, overheated homes. On any given hot night, dozens of people spread blankets across the station platforms to sleep, just feet from parked train cars. Some use backpacks or plastic bags as pillows, while flip-flops are piled inches from bare feet. Near the entrance, day laborers who cannot fit in the station spread blankets and even towels directly on the gravel shoulder, sleeping through the constant noise of passing vehicles and arriving passengers just for the chance at a cool breeze.
For parents with small children who cannot get comfortable enough to sleep, the station is a place to wait out the hottest part of the night, huddled around a smartphone to pass the time. This constant search for any bit of cool relief has become the defining experience of summer in Banda.
Climate experts explain that what Banda is experiencing is not just normal summer heat — it is a direct consequence of human-caused climate change shifting temperature norms across the globe. “While Banda has always been known for hot summers, what is changing right now is the intensity, the duration and the number of people exposed to dangerous heat conditions,” said Abhiyant Tiwari, a climate and health specialist with the New Delhi-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) India. He added that unrelenting overnight heat is particularly dangerous, as it prevents the human body from recovering from the stress of a full day of high temperatures.
Local government officials say they have taken steps to address the crisis: opening public cooling centers, distributing hundreds of thousands of oral rehydration salt kits to at-risk communities, and increasing monitoring of local hospitals during heat warnings. Banda District Magistrate Amit Aasery said authorities are also tracking groundwater levels, soil moisture and vegetation loss while working to expand access to clean water and raise public awareness of heat safety. But even with these interventions, Aasery acknowledged that local action can only go so much to counter a global crisis. “What is happening here is a global phenomenon,” he said. “It is because of climate change. We are the recipient of this.”
Reporting for this article was contributed by Sibi Arasu from Bengaluru, India, and Seth Borenstein from Washington, D.C. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental reporting receives funding from multiple private foundations, with AP retaining full editorial control over all content.
