A protest against proposed summer power cuts has forced Sindh officials to disclose how they ranked heat danger — and exposed a formula that left 11 districts off the province’s top-priority list. Climate researchers say the decision understated the threat to communities in the upper Indus, where rising temperatures are already making nights dangerously hot.
The calculation matters because it governs access to PKR 18 billion (about €55 million) in planned spending on water points, shaded shelters and backup power. A public review on Monday showed the ranking counted extreme daytime temperatures but left out sustained heat overnight, when homes and clinics can stay dangerously warm.
The formula behind the ranking
The protest began on Sunday in Hyderabad, where hundreds gathered over planned electricity rationing and higher charges for backup power. Demonstrators carried handwritten temperature charts and demanded the release of the district-by-district method behind the grants. On Monday, the provincial Heat Preparedness Cell opened its calculations to reporters after the crowd threatened to return.
The province’s 2026 map gave first-priority status to three districts. Yet station records used in the calculation show that 11 districts recorded at least 10 nights above 30°C (86°F) during last summer, according to an independent review by the Karachi-based Delta Climate Observatory. The map’s scoring method used daily high temperatures averaged across whole districts, smoothing away local extremes.
“A city can be in danger long after the afternoon thermometer falls,” said Elise Terry, a climate modeller at the observatory. “If you count only the daily peak, you erase the hours when people cannot recover from the heat.”
They made the danger look smaller by counting only half the day.
Elise Terry, climate modeller
A provincial spokesperson said the map was designed to direct resources where daytime temperatures posed the greatest immediate risk, and that no district had been denied emergency support. “People should not panic about next summer,” the spokesperson said. Terry’s team disputes that reassurance: its review found that several omitted districts would qualify for the highest tier if night-time readings were included.
The coming summer’s numbers
A separate regional analysis by the observatory estimates that human-caused warming has made recent extreme heat in upper Sindh substantially more likely. If global emissions remain high, its models project 18 to 24 days above 45°C (113°F) each summer in the Jacobabad-Sukkur corridor between 2035 and 2039, compared with about seven days a year in the 1991-2020 baseline. The most severe model run reaches 31 days by 2040.
The greater danger may come after sunset. Researchers project that some towns could experience 20 or more nights above 30°C (86°F) in a hot season by the late 2030s. Without cooler nights, bodies have less time to recover, while households and clinics face longer demand for electricity, water and cooling.
Officials are now discussing a revised risk map, mobile water stations and backup power for clinics before April 2027. The provincial cell says its technical team will publish a new ranking by 30 November, but it has not promised to change the grant formula. Protest organisers say they will return if the revised plan still leaves out overnight readings.
For the demonstrators, the disclosure was a victory; for residents of the excluded districts, the forecast offers little comfort. “We came for an answer about power bills and found out the heat plan was missing the nights,” said Mário Matias, a shopkeeper who joined the Hyderabad protest. “Now they have to count all of it.”
