A little girl carries an empty container across the beach to fetch water from a well in the desert village of Barrah in the Sahel region of Chad.
Ben Curtis/AP
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Ben Curtis/AP
A little girl carries an empty container across the beach to fetch water from a well in the desert village of Barrah in the Sahel region of Chad.
Ben Curtis/AP
LAGOS, Nigeria The deadly heatwave that hit West Africa earlier this month would not have occurred without human-caused climate change activity, overwhelming hospitals and morgues in parts of the region, according to a study by an international network of scientists. Extreme heat temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit can kill hundreds or thousands of people in multiple countries.
New analysis from the World Weather Attribution Group found that the region would not have experienced the spike in temperatures it experienced during the five days of the heatwave without human-induced climate change, including the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Previous research has found that high temperatures at night are particularly deadly because the body is unable to cool down and recover from the heat stress of the day.
The five-day period between late March and early April was one of the most extreme weather ever recorded, a once-in-200-year event that resulted in the Malian city of Kes having its hottest day in early April, with temperatures reaching 119 degrees Fahrenheit ( 48.5 degrees Celsius).
A hospital in Mali’s capital Bamako recorded 102 deaths in the first four days of April, close to the number recorded for the entire month last year. The hospital said more than half of those who died were over 60 years old and that high temperatures were one of the causes of death.
The death toll in the region is unclear, but local reports indicate the death toll is unusually high and some morgues in Bamako have been overwhelmed.
Deaths have also been caused by power shortages in countries such as Nigeria and Sierra Leone, leaving people without fans and air conditioning. It exacerbates risks for vulnerable groups, even those not typically considered vulnerable. It also coincides with Ramadan, the fasting period for Muslims, the main religious group in the Sahel region of West Africa.
Pictured is an empty room in a concrete house in Matam, Senegal. Many homes have no electricity or the means to have fans or air conditioners to help beat the nighttime heat, which can stay around 35 degrees Celsius throughout the night.
John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images
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John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images
Pictured is an empty room in a concrete house in Matam, Senegal. Many homes have no electricity or the means to have fans or air conditioners to help beat the nighttime heat, which can stay around 35 degrees Celsius throughout the night.
John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images
Temperatures in the region rose 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, severe enough to cause mass casualties. The evenings brought little relief, with temperatures rising by an average of 2 degrees Celsius.
The climate crisis is particularly deadly in the Sahel, exacerbating the challenge of dwindling grazing land for pastoralists in the region. These challenges have fueled large-scale migration and jihadist insurgencies in the region, particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso and large parts of Niger.
The report concluded that similar extreme weather events will continue to occur in the region as the Earth warms in the future.
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