In the city of Ahmedabad in western India, temperatures climbed above 43C (109F) every day between May 19 and May 25, creating deadly hot working conditions for many of the laborers who keep the local economy humming.
For 40-year-old Lataben Arvindbhai Makwana, it was too unbearable to run her sewing machine inside her tin-roofed house, which has little ventilation and only a small ceiling fan. As a daily wage laborer, that meant she was not earning the money she needed to feed her kids and buy blood pressure medication for herself.
