KOLKATA (AFP) – Soaring temperatures across Kolkata have brought life in much of the Indian megacity to a standstill, but veterinarian Partha Das cannot recall a time when he was more busy.

His clinic has been swamped by distressed members of the public carrying in beloved pets suffering nosebleeds, severe skin rashes and lapses into unconsciousness in a relentless heatwave suffocating much of South and Southeastern Asia over the past week.

“Many pets are also hospitalised for three or four consecutive days, and they are taking a long time to get back to normal,” the 57-year-old told AFP from his surgery.

“We are getting several heatstroke cases in a day. It’s unprecedented.”

Kolkata has sweltered through days of punishing heat, peaking at 43 degrees Celsius (°C) for the hottest single April day since 1954, according to the city’s weather bureau.

Streets of the normally bustling colonial-era capital have been almost deserted in the afternoons as its 15 million people do what they can to stay out of the sun.

But even cats and dogs lucky enough to have an owner have been susceptible to falling ill, with Das saying the heat had triggered a surge in dehydration-related illnesses in pets from around the city.

Teacher Sriparna Bose said her two cats had become sullen and withdrawn in a way she hadn’t seen before when the heatwave hit.

“They are refusing food,” she said. “They hide in dark, cold corners of the room and won’t come out.”

The situation is worse for the 70,000 stray dogs estimated to live on city streets by municipal authorities, which have no owner but are often fed and tended to by nearby residents.

Many are spending the day taking refuge from the sun under parked cars, while a lucky few are hosed down by sympathetic humans to help them cool off.

“They are finding it difficult to stand on their soft paws because the roads are so hot,” said Gurshaan Kohli of Humanimal Foundation, a local animal welfare charity for stray animals.

“Scores of dogs and cats have died” even though he and his colleagues had rushed them to clinics for treatment, he added.

Large swathes of South and Southeast Asia are struggling through a heatwave that has broken temperature records and forced millions of children to stay home as schools close across the region.

Experts say climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, longer and more intense, while the El Nino phenomenon is also driving this year’s exceptionally warm weather.

The heat has taken its toll on animals across the continent.

“They are eating less, and they are reluctant to move,” Henna Pekko of Rescue PAWS, which operates an animal shelter near Thailand’s capital Bangkok, told AFP.

With temperatures in Thailand exceeding 40°C over the past week, Pekko said her charity had taken to bringing its rescues to the ocean to cool down with a swim, while older dogs were being kept indoors.

“We are definitely taking extra precautions because of this weather,” she told AFP, adding that the stress on animals from the heat was the worst she had experienced in the kingdom.

“Last year was bad. This year was worse.”

AP – Once a glittering weekend getaway for wealthy residents of Mexico City, Valle de Bravo has been reduced to a shrinking, increasingly polluted patch of mud flats and water by a combination of drought, water transfers to the capital, bad planning and lawlessness.

Residents said on Thursday that Valle – as the reservoir has been known since the 1940s – is being drained by Mexico City’s refusal to fix broken pipes that waste much of its water, as well as the unrestrained construction of private dams and holding ponds by suspiciously wealthy and powerful newcomers.

In a country where the government appears not to listen and gang violence is common, residents and activists can only watch as their beloved lake disappears.

The National Water Commission, known by its Spanish initials as Conagua, has done little to remedy the problem.

Moises Jaramillo is one of the tour boat operators who has made his living taking less-monied tourists around the lake for years (the wealthy use their own sailboats).

Jaramillo said of the Conagua officials, “They don’t do anything. Their response is to come and intimidate us.”

That was a reference to a move last week by the Water Commission, which slapped closure stickers on the docks from where the boats launch.

To be fair, it is becoming increasingly difficult to lure any tourists to the lake; visitors now have to walk out a few dozen yards over mud flats on improvised paths of stones, tires and boards to reach the shrunken shore, putting up with the increasing green-brown colour and smell of the water as they go.

Valle de Bravo resident Claudia Suárez was one of dozens of protesters who blocked traffic on one of Mexico City’s main boulevards in February, demanding Conagua take action to address the real problem in a chain of three lakes – known as the Cutzamala System – that supply Mexico City with about one-quarter of its water.

“If there is money available, they could start repairing the leaks, above all in Mexico City,” said Suárez. “Forty per cent of the water that comes from the Cutzamala System is lost to leaks. That’s criminal.”

The problem is not only affecting poorer boat operators. As the title of an old Mexican soap opera said, The Rich Cry, Too.

“Valle de Bravo lives off this reservoir and basically, tourism,” said Suárez. “Tourism has gone down between 50 and 60 per cent,” she said, adding “this is snowballing and affecting all levels; I think that property prices have fallen, too”.

Mexico´s version of the Hamptons, Valle de Bravo lies two hours from Mexico City. It is a haven for Mexico´s richest families, who congregate on weekends in wood and glass “cabins” with views of the lake or towering pine forests. They dine out at five-star restaurants and hold long, lavish lunches on lawns crowded with Hummers, BMWs and increasingly popular all-terain vehicle.

This week Valle de Bravo’s reservoir was at 29.3 per cent of its capacity, compared to 52 per cent during the same week last year. Conagua and Mexico City officials have brushed off concerns, saying the capital has agreed to temporarily reduce water deliveries to the over 20 million residents of the greater Mexico City area.

The problem, they said, will be solved in June, when central Mexico’s strongly seasonal rains begin again. But Jaramillo said that’s not true: the falling water levels have become a permanent problem that threatens the lake’s very existence.

“Last year when it rained, the level of the lake still fell,” Jaramillo said.

Everybody agree beyond the very real drought late last year, there’s an underlying problem. Increasingly since the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a huge increase in the development of luxury compounds with private lakes for water-skiing and swimming. That has prevented huge amounts of water from ever reaching the reservoir.

“There are a lot of people taking the water, the rivers almost run dry, and a lot of these (private) dams are 100 per cent full,” said Suárez.

Jaramillo estimates there may be as many as 400 such private lakes or ponds of varying size near the lake, and that now, even with the water crisis, 15 more are under construction.

A local architect, who asked not be named for personal reasons – he built many of the upscale houses around the lake – denied that the relatively small private lakes and ponds are the problem, noting the volume of water they hold is a drop in the bucket. But he agreed that water extraction for Mexico City was a huge problem.

Either way, the authorities said they need local residents to file formal complaints about such private dams and reservoirs.

But Valle de Bravo sits at the edge of an area controlled by the extremely ruthless Familia Michoacana drug cartel, and Mexican gang leaders have a decades-long penchant for building luxury compounds for themselves in upscale areas favoured by other wealthy Mexicans.

Driving by gated homes and condominiums, or outside fancy restaurants in the area, it’s not unusual to see men who could be bodyguards for wealthy businessmen – or cartel enforcers. It’s usually wiser not to ask which. – Marco Ugarte

DEIR EL-BALAH (AFP) – On a cinder block work table in the war-torn Gaza Strip, puppet maker Mahdi Karira is busy turning old tin cans into figurines.

He hums as he works, knowing his makeshift marionettes will put a smile on the faces of children displaced by the more than six-month war in the coastal Palestinian territory.

“These puppets can make things around us beautiful,” he said, surveying his handiwork.

Before the war, Karira had a whole store of brightly-coloured puppets and often took them to perform in theatres.

Now, he performs in camps for displaced people after Israeli bombardment forced him to flee his home in Gaza City to Deir al-Balah, in the centre of the narrow strip.

Several puppets are suspended along the workshop walls, their bodies topped by expressive human faces carved onto wood or tin cans, their limbs hooked to strings which Karira uses to make them walk and talk.

With Gaza under siege, new materials are hard to come by, so he makes do with debris, fishing line and old sardine tins stamped with the United Nations logo, which he brings to life with a touch of paint.

“Unfortunately, after the displacement, there were no more puppets, no more theatre,” he told AFP. “I left all my work in Gaza City”, in the territory’s north.

“There aren’t many raw materials to work with – only cans of all shapes and sizes around us,” he added.

PUPPETS TELL ‘BEAUTIFUL THINGS’

UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, estimates the war in Gaza has displaced around 850,000 children in Gaza. Many are sheltering in camps around Deir al-Balah, where childhood fun is a distant memory.

“I try to make shows and performances to bring joy to the children in the displacement camps, so we remain steadfast on this earth despite the aggressions,” Karira said in reference to Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza, sitting beside his pliers and a painted puppet head.

As the war rumbles on around him, Karira said it was vital to keep up his craft.

“The most important thing is to remain faithful to your work by creating your art,” he said.

“Each of us has his trade, his talents, and his art that allows him to continue to have an activity despite the aggression.”

The war broke out after Hamas militants’ unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,450 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory says.

The territory’s cultural heritage has also been devastated – from arts centres and museums to historic buildings.

As he watches Gaza reduced to rubble, Karira said the puppets “can tell beautiful things, tell our history and stories to children”.