Ranchi: Due to the soaring mercury, school timings in Jharkhand have been changed from Monday. Schools will now open at 6.30 am instead of 8.30 am and will close at 11 am instead of 2.30 pm, an official said.
Ranchi, which was the summer capital of undivided Bihar, witnessed a temperature of 40.6 degrees Celsius Sunday. In Palamau and in some other parts of the state, the mercury touched 46 degrees Celsius.
In Ranchi, the district administration has directed schools to close by 11 am According to an official of the Met office, the temperature of Ranchi last year on April 11 was 34 degrees. This has gone up to 40.6 degrees this year.
A heat wave in Jharkhand has seen temperatures touching 44 degrees Celsius in Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Dhanbad.
"The climate of Ranchi has changed in the past few years as trees have been chopped to widen the roads and construct multi storey buildings. In the past nine years, over two lakh vehicles were registered in Ranchi alone. Pollution has also caused a rise in temperature," Nitish Priyadharshi, an environmentalist, told a news agency.
IANS
