During heat waves, the country usually suffers severe water shortages, with tens of millions of its 1.4 billion people lacking running water.

More than a billion people are at risk of heat-related impacts in the region, scientists have warned, linking the early onset of an intense summer to climate change.

Eating onions, lying in the shade and crowding into rivers, Indians were doing whatever they could Thursday to stay cool amid a brutal heat wave that has killed more than 1,400 in the past month.