LAHORE, May 27: People across the length and breadth of the country will have to brave an extreme heatwave in the next at least five days amidst the curse of loadshedding whose shortfall enhanced to 6,000 megawatts on Sunday.

Pepco officials attributed the enhanced loadshedding to shortage of furnace oil. And as there seems no respite against the loadshedding which is also gravely affecting water supply, the Met office said the extreme heatwave would initially grip upper Sindh, southern and western Balochistan and south Punjab from Monday (today). It would extend to upper parts of the country on Tuesday (tomorrow).

The Met office expected day temperatures to rise in some areas of Balochistan, Sindh and south Punjab to 48 to 50 degrees Celsius during the next five days.

Many cities in Sindh are already experiencing hot weather. The maximum temperature in Dadu on Sunday was 49 degrees C. It was 45 degrees C in Nawabshah, Lasbela, Larkana, Sukkur and Jacobabad.

Major cities in Punjab are experiencing loadshedding of up to 14 hours, making it difficult for people to brave the harsh summer. The situation is even worse in rural areas where the duration has climbed to nearly 23 to 24 hours.

Pepco officials say the power demand has increased to 16,814MW against the production of 10,814MW.

In Lahore, the maximum temperature was 42 degrees C. Wasa officials said power supply was being affected because of loadshedding. And a lack of funds was disallowing them to run tubewells with diesel.

“The demand for water has increased which can only be met if there is enough power supply or diesel for tubewells,” an official said.