Heat wave claims lives of at least 125 in Mexico this year, hitting country’s most vulnerable

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — When the nursing home in southern Mexico began to bake in the country's ongoing heat wave, staff cycled their elderly residents through the few cooling options they had.

First, some would sit in front of fans buzzing in the sweltering heat of Veracruz. Then they'd be moved in front of the building's few treasured air conditioning units. Then it was back to the record-breaking temperatures roiling the Veracruz state.

Anything to get through the climate change-fuelled heat wave, which has left much of Mexico grappling with the mounting human toll of the heat.

“We have never before experienced a heat wave this intense, this powerful, this pervasive and this persistent,” said María Teresa Mendoza, director of the Cogra nursing home, operating for decades in the port of Veracruz. “This heat wave has killed many people here in Veracruz.”

At least 125 people in the Latin American nation have died due to the heat this year, according to data from the country's health ministry. More than 2,300 more have suffered heat stroke, dehydration and sunburns.

The heat deaths and larger ripple effects in Mexico have underscored the disproportionate effects climate change and rising global temperatures are having on some of the world's most vulnerable.

Victims in Veracruz have made up nearly a third of the deaths as temperatures have reached 100 degrees in the humid Mexican gulf state. Caregivers like Mendoza have been left scrambling to ease the suffering of her patients.

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