Lahore: For the second year in a row, April in Pakistan did not arrive with a flower, but with blistering heat. Across large cuts of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, temperatures rose above 40 degrees Celsius, weeks before the official beginning of summer.
“For the past two years, Pakistan has not experienced spring,” Muhammad Irfan Virk told the Deputy General of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) in Islamabad, told The news. “April is becoming increasingly warmer and warmer. This relates.”
PMD issued five heating advice in April and May this year, most of them in April, typically considered a transitional month. The hottest day was recorded on April 17 in Sindh’s Shaheed Benazirabad District, where Mercury hit 49 C.
According to PMD’s monthly climate rally, April 2025 was the second hottest April of the last 65 years of highest was in 2022. And in both May 2024 and 2025, temperatures 4 to 6 C over long-term average rose in several areas, the State National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) reported.
“This marks a worrying trend, indicating that future heat waves may become even more intense due to continued climate shifts and man -made factors,” NDMA wrote in its annual publication in 2024.
The extreme heat was not limited to Pakistan. A report from Climameter, an international platform that tracks extreme weather events, found that both Pakistan and India experienced an “unusual early arrival of the heat wave.”
“The heat wave in both countries has a disproportionate impact on vulnerable sectors in the population and tests the overall human boundaries seriously and pushes the thresholds of survivability,” the report said.
The report designated Islamabad as one of the most affected cities with average temperatures up to +3 C higher than in previous years.
This trend is in line with the findings of a three-year-old Analysis from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Pakistan, which connects rapid urbanization in Pakistan’s capital to rising land surface temperatures.
“In Islamabad, rapid urban growth has replaced crops, grasslands and forests that make it one of Pakistan’s fastest executive cities,” noted the WWF report. “Islamabad built area Skyrocket by almost 585%, while the wood cover took a 10% hit between 1990 and 2020.”
Similar urban expansion and loss of vegetation have been documented in Lahore and Karachi.
The government -driven NDMA had similar conclusions. A spokesperson for NDMA told The news That while the southern districts of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan remain climate meat spots, urban centers are heated faster. “Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad are heated at a higher speed due to the urban heat island effect,” she said.
David Faranda, a senior climate researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research and co -author of Climameter Report, believes spring disappears indicating a deeper climate change in South Asia.
“The loss of a” buffer “season as spring reflects how extreme weather patterns replace gradual seasonal changes, especially in vulnerable regions such as South Asia,” he said. “Heat waves must be treated not only as weather events, but as public health emergencies.” But Pakistan’s current systems are far from equipped to do so.
In May, the Climate Change Minister told the National Assembly that 568 people died over Pakistan during a six-day heat wave between 20 and 26 June last year. Of these, 427 were from Karachi alone.
However, when The news Contacted the Federal Ministry of Climate Change, PMD and NDMA, none of the organizations could provide updated figures for hot -related deaths or illnesses. The number presented in parliament admitted officials privately came from non-profit organizations and added that there was currently no mechanism in place to collect such figures.
A government official who asked not to be named recognized the gap. “Such data must be collected. People need to be sensibilized over how serious this is [heatwaves] The problem is, ”he added.
Pakistan contributes less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is still among the ten most vulnerable countries against climate change. Floods, droughts, glaciers flooding, and now increasingly frequent and intense heat waves threaten food and water safety and millions of livelihoods.
And the changes are not limited to increasing heat. In April, Islamabad was beaten by a sudden and violent hailstorm – described by residents as a ‘freak’ event – damaging cars, homes and public infrastructure.
While the causes are global, the domestic planning also worsens local influences, said Hammad Naqi Khan, CEO of WWF Pakistan.
“We create heat islands in our urban areas. We remove vegetation and wood coverage from Lahore to Islamabad to Karachi, to Murre,” he said. “Yes, Pakistan’s contribution to emissions is very low, but it is also necessary to put his own house in order.”
Khan urged the federal and provincial governments to prepare urban-specific heat action plans and strengthen local governments to implement them.
Faranda agrees. He noted that some cities, like Ahmedabad in India and Seville in Spain, are now naming heat waves to increase public attention and framing them as serious threats.
In 2022, Sevilla appointed the world’s first heat wave: Zoe.
Faranda also suggested to identify dedicated “heat officers” to ensure coordination across state agencies during extreme weather events.
He also called for climate diplomacy between Arch-Rival’s India and Pakistan to save lives.
“Heat waves do not recognize boundaries. Regional cooperation on data sharing, forecasts, public health strategies and the city’s resilience could save thousands of lives,” Faranda said. “In a fragmented world, the climate crisis could become a bridge for pragmatic, humanitarian cooperation.”
