Canadians Pack Into Cooling Centers As Heat Wave Death Toll Doubles

Vancouver, July 1 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Jul, 2021 ) :Inside one of Vancouver's 25 air-conditioned cooling centers on Wednesday, visitors quietly read books or worked on laptops as the death toll in Canada's British Columbia province rose into the hundreds from a record-smashing heat wave.

"We've had heat waves before, but not to this extent," said Lou, who provided only her first name. "I'm shocked by how many deaths there have been." "I have no air conditioning, only a fan at home -- I came here just to work where it's cool." Canada's westernmost province has been scorched for days by record-smashing heat that reached 49.5 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit) in Lytton, three hours northeast of Vancouver, on Tuesday, surpassing its own previous all-time Canadian record a day earlier.

The heat has killed scores of residents, with the toll rising "by the hour," police said Tuesday, while meteorologists warned of more extreme temperatures to come.

Among those being mourned was the mother-in-law of infectious diseases expert Tara Moriarty, who said the otherwise healthy senior was afraid to seek respite from the heat because she was only half-vaccinated for Covid-19.

"It's quite devastating," Moriarty said on Twitter. "My partner's healthy mom died of heat stroke in British Columbia (Sunday) night.

"Heat stroke can kill very fast. If you have family, neighbours, friends afraid to seek cooler places (because of) Covid, check on them every couple of (hours) when it's really hot."The British Columbia Coroners Service reported 486 "sudden deaths" between Friday and Wednesday, compared with 165 normally, while Vancouver police said calls for help overwhelmed emergency phone lines.

"While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather British Columbia has experienced and continues to impact many parts of our province," the coroner's service said in a statement.