UN, Red Cross seek better preparation for future heat waves

The international Red Cross and the United Nations are urging people and governments to do more to beat the heat, by preparing better for heat waves like recent ones from Sacramento, California, to Somalia to Sichuan, China, that could take many lives in the future.
U.N. humanitarian aid agency OCHA and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued their first joint report, chronicling the devastation of past scorchers and laying out ways to prepare for and limit the damage of future ones.
The report, “Extreme Heat: Preparing for the Heatwaves of the Future,” said 38 heat waves accounted for the deaths of more than 70,000 people worldwide from 2010 to 2019 — a likely underestimate of the real toll — on top of the fallout on lives and livelihoods.
That toll made up more than one-sixth of the more than 410,000 deaths from disasters linked to extreme weather and climate over the same span, citing previous Red Cross calculations.