Photo by Mark Robbins from FreeImages
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily | OCTOBER 6th 2021
The heatwave that coursed through Canada’s Westernmost province of British Columbia was one of the country’s deadliest weather events on record. A recent report, however, suggests that inadequacy on the part of local authorities may be partially to blame for that deadliness.
The Summer heatwave was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people across the province, and according to the report, published on Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the majority of these casualties were either older people, or individuals with disabilities who had received inadequate support for such dangerous conditions.
“People with disabilities and older people are at high risk of heat stress, but they were left to cope with dangerous heat on their own,” said a senior disability rights researcher at HRW, Emina Cerimovic. “The Canadian authorities need to listen to and provide much better support for people with disabilities and older people before disaster strikes again.”
The report was a call for the federal, as well as the British Columbia governments to step up and provide better resources and protections for particularly vulnerable people before the next heatwaves, which are likely to repeat the following Summer – lest the mortality rates are to be dangerously high again.
The crisis was called “the most deadly weather event in Canadian history” by the scientific director of B.C. Centre for Disease Control, Sarah Henderson. Temperatures had risen to above a dangerous 40 degrees Celsius between June 25 and July 1, forming what was called a heat dome over the Canadian province.
“It's referred to as a 'one-in-a-thousand-year' event. But of course it's happened now. And it presents us with the obligation to develop and increase our collective resiliency,” added Health Minister Adrian Dix during a virtual convention in September.
In order to help curb “the most catastrophic climate outcomes,” the HRW had also called on the Canadian authorities to stop their habit of subsidising fossil fuels. The report was based on interviews with 31 different people, all of whom had their own various experiences to share during the days of the heatwave that had reportedly killed 569 others.
“One person said that her 88-year-old aunt who used a wheelchair died on June 28 as a result of the heat dome and had been unable to get through to 911,” read the report. The report had also noted that several communities had set up cooling centres in order to ease some of the heatwaves worst effects, but these ended up useless to many older or disabled people due to inadequate transportation measures.
