NEW DELHI, June 8: India’s annual monsoon rains hit the southern coast in Kerala state on Sunday, bringing respite from a three-week heat wave that has killed more than 1,300 people.

“Monsoon has advanced into Kerala. Conditions are favourable for its advance into South Karnataka in the next 48 hours,” S.K. Subramaniam, deputy director general of the Indian Meteorological Department, told Reuters.

The annual June-September monsoon rains, the lifeline of the Indian economy, usually hits the southern coast on June 1. But this year the northeast received the first monsoon rains, on Thursday.

Millions of Indians have been praying for rains and searching for water as wells dried up in the last few weeks. Over 1,300 people have died in southern Andhra Pradesh state due to sunstroke and dehydration. Dozens have died in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, which had its first spell of rain three days ago, only five of the country’s 64 districts received some showers in the past 12 hours, the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, said.

The country’s two main cities, capital Dhaka and Chittagong, received no rainfall on Sunday but weather officials said heavy rains were expected as the monsoon was active across the country.

Across India’s western border in Pakistan, weather official Mohammad Hanif said temperatures had fallen by one-to-two degrees Celcius in the past 24 hours and there were chances of light rains in some parts of the country on Sunday night.

“There is no significant rain trend in the country for the next few days,” he said, adding there could be pre-monsoon rains around mid-June. But he forecast the heatwave to subside across the country by Monday.

The Indian weather office said on Saturday the scorching heat wave would recede from parts of central India, including Andhra Pradesh, in the next 48 hours.

India’s monsoon rain, after its arrival in Kerala, usually advances to the oilseeds and rice growing western states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh in about two weeks.

Analysts said the delay in the monsoon by a few days was unlikely to hit crop output as long as rain spread evenly across the country.

The Indian economy, Asia’s third-largest, depends heavily on monsoon rains. Around 70 percent of the population lives off the land and agriculture makes up a quarter of gross domestic product.

Analysts say a healthy monsoon is crucial for achieving a government target of six percent economic growth in the year to next March, after a drought slowed the economy last year. —Reuters