WASHINGTON: At least two people were reported on Wednesday to have died as an oppressive heatwave smothered the United States from the midwestern plains to the east coast city streets of Washington.

Press reports said a 47-year-old railway worker in the central state of Oklahoma collapsed on the job on Tuesday and was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in the town of Poteau, in the eastern part of the state.

His body temperature was reportedly near 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2 Celsius).

In neighbouring Arkansas, where soaring temperatures combined with high humidity to push the heat index — what the temperature really feels like — as high as 110 Fahrenheit (43.3 C), health officials reported that an elderly person had died because of the heat, but declined to give more details.

The National Weather Service has issued heat advisories for 22 states, stretching from Kansas and Oklahoma in the heart of the United States to Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland, and down the east coast to northern Florida.—AFP