India ranks 4th among countries worst hit by heat-related deaths due to Super El Nino. Here's how

Super El Nino this year is projected to lead to 451,000 deaths from extreme hot days and that’s on top of the impacts from droughts, wildfires and flooding expected from hotter temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns as this El Nino could become the strongest on record, said a new Climate Impact Lab report.

Scientists project that global land temperatures will be 1.2°C above normal in the coming months due in large part to the current Super El Nino that began in June and is expected to last through Northern Hemisphere spring.

These anomalously warm conditions will resemble the higher temperatures that climate change is projected to deliver 20 years in the future and will lead to 44% more extremely hot days than we would expect in a normal year.

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El Nino is effectively pushing us into the future—exposing us to temperatures that won’t be the norm for another two decades—before we have time to adapt and protect ourselves.

The Lab, headquartered at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), in its report said the heat deaths will be concentrated overwhelmingly in the Global South.

Over 15,800 additional heat-related deaths are projected in India during Sep 2026 - Feb 2027 and nearly half of those deaths fall in just three months -- December to February. The toll is not expected to stop there - deaths are projected to keep rising into India’s summer.

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“We have long been able to predict the impacts of temperatures on crops, and now we can predict their impact on the worst outcome—death. This report allows decision makers to see exactly where emergency actions can be taken now to save tens of thousands of lives in the coming months,” says Michael Greenstone, a co-founder of the Climate Impact Lab.

Over just the next six months, the report projects 66,800 additional deaths across the Sahel in Africa, with nearly half of those lives being lost in Nigeria (31,400). In Southeast Asia, the extra heat is projected to cause an additional 19,400 deaths in the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, and 19,300 deaths in Indonesia.

Directing emergency response and resilience efforts to these high-priority regions has the potential to avoid tens of thousands of deaths.