Workers Are Dying in the Heat in India
South Asia is witnessing scorching heat waves, with temperatures in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India regularly surpassing 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat is killing an unprecedented number of workers who have no choice but to work under the blazing sun.
Scorching temperatures are blazing all across India and the rest of South Asia — and workers without adequate heat protections from their governments are dying because of it. (Rupak De Chowdhuri / NurPhoto)
Haryana, India — On April 26, under a blazing sky in Haryana’s grain market, Rajendra Paswan, fifty, a migrant laborer from Bihar, collapsed while lifting sacks of grain. Hundreds of laborers watched as the father from Bihar died far from home. Paswan’s death is India’s first case of a workers’ death in a heat wave in 2026.
“There was no shaded shelter to rest beneath, no emergency medical team nearby, and not even clean drinking water for laborers working through temperatures crossing 45 degrees Celsius,” says Choppan Kumar, a forty-two-year-old worker who has joined protests against heat deaths in India.
Like millions of India’s informal workers, Paswan kept working because missing a day’s wage meant his family would go hungry. India’s Haryana state is now witnessing a severe early season heat wave. Across South Asia, governments have issued emergency alerts, closed schools, and issued public advisories in response to the rising temperatures. In Bangladesh, the temperatures reached 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit), schools demanded the government cancel classes or close them before noon.
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