Hyderabad, May 22 -- An 89-year-old woman in Mahabubabad, a 17-year-old student in Suryapet, a daily wage worker at a paddy procurement centre, an unidentified woman found collapsed at a bus stand - these are not numbers in a government tally, but the human cost of a single day in Telangana baking under a relentless heatwave that claimed at least 22 lives on Thursday, May 21, even as the India Meteorological Department warned that the worst may not be over.

The toll was spread across more than a dozen districts. In Mahabubabad, three people died - Kesa Lachamma, 89, from Kotha Irsulapuram village, woman farmer Gugulothu Amrutha, 54, from Hanumannagar Thanda and Gade Komuramma, 95, from Kalvala in Kesamudram mandal.

In Hanamkonda, Gannoj...