[CBSNEWS] A senior Pak health official says the corpse count in the country's southern Sindh province, which has been struck by a heat wave, has reached 622.Senior provincial health official Saeed Mangnejo said on Tuesday that he expects the number of fatalities to climb further.
Mangnejo says the corpse count is for the past three days, though most of the deaths were reported in the province's largest city, Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
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Temperatures reaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) struck Karachi over the weekend. Hourslong power outages, typical in Pakistain, also struck the city, leaving fans and air conditioners inoperable as the majority of people in this Moslem country abstain from food or water in daylight hours during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Morgues have overflowed with the dead and hospitals have struggled to aid those clinging to life.
The power outages also affected the sporadic water supply in the city, where those who can afford it rely on tankers of water being delivered to their homes.
Most of the dead are the elderly, said Seemi Jamali, a spokeswoman for Karachi's Jinnah Hospital. Thousands more are being treated for heat-related ailments, including fever and dehydration and stomach-related illnesses, she said. Mortuaries were running out of space, with local television stations showing bodies stacked inside of cold storage rooms of morgues.