“When the full midsummer heat hits Jacobabad, the city retreats inside as if sheltering from attack.
“The streets are deserted and residents hunker down as best they can to weather temperatures that can top 52C (126F).
“Few have any air conditioning, and blackouts mean often there is no mains electricity. The hospital fills with heatstroke cases from those whose livelihoods mean they must venture out.”

Portland has air conditioned stadiums to hide out in. Jacobabad has taps.

“This city of some 200,000 in Pakistan's Sindh province has long been renowned for its fierce heat, but recent research has conferred an unwelcome scientific distinction.
“Its mixture of heat and humidity has made it one of only two places on earth to have now officially passed, albeit briefly, a threshold hotter than the human body can withstand.”

What threshold is that?

“The researchers examined what are called wet bulb temperatures. These are taken from a thermometer covered in a water-soaked cloth so they take into account both heat and humidity.
“Wet bulb thermometer readings are significantly lower than the more familiar dry bulb readings, which do not take humidity into account. Researchers say that at a wet bulb reading of 35C, the body can no longer cool itself by sweating and such a temperature can be fatal in a few hours, even to the fittest people.”

For Jacobabad:

“Jacobabad crossed the 35C wet bulb threshold in July 1987, then again in June 2005, June 2010 and July 2012. Each time the boundary may have been breached for only a few hours, but a three-day average maximum temperature has been recorded hovering around 34C in June 2010, June 2001 and July 2012. The dry bulb temperature is often over 50C in the summer.”

Pakistan is a fascinating place; it’s also going to get totally pummelled by climate change; from glaciers melting (plus flash flooding) in the north—with an eventual lack of water for agriculture when the glaciers have mostly melted away, to heat from its location close to the equator, not to mention unchecked population increase.

And that’s just the start of their problems.

[Photo credit: Mehboob Ali showers under a hose at a water filling point, where he fills canisters to sell in Jacobabad, one of the world's two hottest places. Photo by Saiyna Bashir]