An excruciating pre-monsoon heat wave is baking large parts of India, with temperatures routinely breaching 45 C and topping 47 C in many states, causing human and economic distress and even some deaths due to heatstroke.

The India Meteorological Department has continued issuing red and orange alerts, warning of "severe heat wave conditions" and unbearably warm nights. The national capital reportedly recorded the country's highest-ever temperature of 49.9 C recently.

The heat wave is rapidly mutating from a public health emergency into a macroeconomic and energy crisis. India loses billions due to heat, according to experts.

The scale of the climate crisis across the South Asian country is unprecedented. According to real-time air monitoring data from the Air Quality Index during the peak of the 2026 pre-monsoon heat wave, Indian cities repeatedly claimed between 95 and 98 of the top 100 spots on the world's hottest cities list.

At certain specific hours, the entire top 50 hottest places on Earth were located within India. As many as 26 of them are in the country's northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The IMD has also issued advisories against stepping out of home in the sun, but for India's 450 million informal workers, it seems like a luxury they cannot afford. In fact, the choice for millions may remain one of the two: risking heatstroke or starvation.

"We can't stay put at home even for a day. For the same reason falling sick is something I dread," said Ajay Kumar, 44, a worker earning daily wages at a construction site in New Delhi. "I cannot explain how brutal the situation is. Sometimes, I feel like fleeing the site, which will attract wage cuts and sharp rebukes from my employer."

Raju Shaw, 42, a roadside fruit vendor in the national capital, faces a similar reality. "Working outdoors between noon and 4 pm feels like standing in front of a blast furnace," he said.

Bishnu Orano, a farm laborer in a village in Jharkhand state, shared the same reality. He said: "If I don't work, how will I feed myself and my family of six?"

Indian media have reported there were dozens of cases of heat-related deaths in the southern Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the past week.

According to medics, heat exposure not only drains one physically, but it also affects a person's cognitive ability. "High humidity causes breakdown in human survivability because sweat cannot evaporate effectively," Debabrata Mitra, a doctor in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal state, told China Daily.

Both the McKinsey Global Institute and the World Bank project that heat-induced labor losses could put up to $150 billion to $250 billion of India's GDP at risk by 2030.

"The economic strain is already visible across sectors," economist Abhirup Sarkar, who used to teach at the Indian Statistical Institute, said, adding that the heat stress in the Indo-Gangetic Plains is shriveling wheat and rice grains.

"A minor 1-2 C rise above average drastically cuts crop yields. Any heat wave is bound to disrupt supply chains, ruin crops, and cause food inflation," Sarkar said in an interview with China Daily.

Prasun Dutta, a retired electrical engineer in New Delhi, told China Daily that he has hardly experienced such an unbearable heat wave.

Dutta, who has been living in the national capital for the past four decades, mentioned an IMF report that warned that if there is a severe heat wave, the economy will take a beating.

Cruel effect

"It has a cruel effect on the Indian economy and people's livelihoods," Dutta said, adding the current heat wave will not only result in reduced crop yields, reduced rural incomes and falling productivity, but will also fuel inflation.

Intense heat waves across India recently pushed daytime peak electricity demand to an unprecedented high, adding to the country's energy challenges amid a crude oil supply shortage due to the Middle East conflict. It hit an all-time high of 270.82 gigawatts on May 21 as use of air conditioners soared, severely straining transformers and transmission infrastructure.

Meteorologists point to a lethal convergence of atmospheric factors driving this historic spike. "High-pressure systems over Central India are sinking and compressing air, effectively trapping heat near the surface like a lid on a pot," said an IMD official.

This is the new normal, according to environmentalists who say a lingering El Nino cycle is changing wind patterns and blocking cooling pre-monsoon rainfall. El Nino is a warming of the ocean surface in the tropical Pacific that affects weather patterns worldwide.

Arunava Das is a freelance journalist for China Daily.

Contact the writers at vivienxu@chinadailyapac.com