In pictures: India swelters as severe heat wave sweeps region

A girl uses sunglasses, a mask, a long cloth and an umbrella to protect herself from the sun on her way to school in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. In April, northwest and central India recorded average maximum temperatures of 35.9 and 37.78 Celsius (96.6 and 100 Fahrenheit) respectively, the highest since the Indian Meteorological Department began keeping records 122 years ago.

A boy jumps into the Ganges river under Kolkata's Howrah Bridge to beat the heat. Experts say the heat wave could intensify in the days to come as temperatures could cross the 50-degree mark in north India. Weather trends show that May is usually the "hottest month" of the year in these parts.

A boy sits outside a juice shop as he waits for a customer. The long spell of unusually hot temperatures has been accompanied by a power crisis in India, subjecting millions of people to hourslong power cuts. While critics have accused the government of mismanagement, the steep rise in prices of imported coal due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict has also had an impact.

In this photo, people are seen struggling to fill water from a municipal tanker in the city of Kolkata. India's summer season typically starts in April and continues until early July, regularly claiming scores of lives due to heatstroke and gastrointestinal infections. However, experts say that this year, the heat wave arrived by early March, in line with rise of average summer temperatures.

Here, several women savor a milk-based frozen delicacy called "kulfi" on the streets of Punjab's Amritsar. The state's chief minister has advanced summer vacations in all schools as the intense heat wave lashes the border state. Across the border, Pakistan is also struggling with a pattern of increased temperatures.

These mean are drinking cold sugarcane juice at a roadside stand in the northern city of Amritsar. As long power cuts affect their daily lives, many people are returning to tried and tested methods of staying cool, like drinking cooling drinks with sugarcane and khus, or using earthen pots to store water.

A man rests under the shade of a tree in Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow. April ended with temperatures shooting past 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in several places. The country's hottest place was Banda in Uttar Pradesh, which recorded a temperature of 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.32 degrees Fahrenheit).