NEW DELHI: As the death toll in the current heat wave crossed the 2,000 mark, this has become the fifth deadliest ever heatwave in the world and the second deadliest in India, according to an international database of disasters.

Weathermen are predicting that there are a few more days left in the ongoing heatwave which has killed the most number of people in Andhra Pradesh and Telengana, while affecting large parts of the rest of the country.

The deadliest heatwave on record in India is the 1998 one in which 2,541 people died. The most lethal heatwave in the world was the one that crippled Europe in 2003, killing 71,310 people. These figures are maintained in the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRE)

                                                                ( COURTESY: THE TIMES OF INDIA )