Monsoon rains brought down temperatures across parts of India today, easing a severe heat wave that has killed nearly 1,400 people in South Asia in three weeks.
But in neighboring Pakistan, the worst heat wave in more than a decade showed no signs of abating. Several places in the middle of the country reported temperatures today above 124 degrees.
Dozens have died over the past week, a senior official said.
In India, men, women and children in the northeast, which received this season's first showers Thursday, danced in the rain, while in other parts of the country pre-monsoon showers helped bring down temperatures.
Weather officials said daytime peak temperatures stayed below 115 degrees after soaring this week to 120 in some places.
Millions have been searching for water as wells dried up, while many died of heatstroke and dehydration.
The monsoon had yet to hit the southern coast of Kerala state, where it normally breaks June 1st, but pre-monsoon showers indicated it would arrive in the next two or three days, India Meteorological Department officials said.
"The pre-monsoon showers are a great relief," said Harish Menon, a resident of Irinjalakuda town in Kerala. "The heat was becoming unbearable. We in Kerala are used to heavy rains, not high temperatures," he told Reuters.
Monsoon showers also lashed parts of neighboring Bangladesh, bringing down temperatures after a sweltering heat wave had killed 40 people there in the past three weeks.
The heat wave has also killed 70 people in central Pakistan in the past week, Tahir Ali Javed, the health minister of central Punjab province, told Reuters.
An official at Pakistan's meteorological department said temperatures in the town of Sibbi, in southwestern Baluchistan province, touched 126, the highest recorded temperature in the country today.
