title:  Roads Melt As Record-Shattering Temperatures Hit India (VIDEO)
text: This week temperatures in the town of Phalodi, located in the state of Rajasthan, India, reached 123.8 degrees F. It was the highest temperature ever recorded in the country.As CNN reports here, the brutal heat is taking a massive toll on the people and the economy. At least 400 people have died from heat-related causes over the past four weeks.Photos published by CNN here show devastated crops, dead livestock and melting roads in New Delhi, where temperatures reached 109 degrees F.A video posted to YouTube reportedly shows  a road in Shaheed Chowk, Silvassa, Gujrat,  which  is melting due to scorching heat. The country s current deadly heat wave comes on the heels of a devastating summer heat wave which claimed the lives of more than 2,500 people in 2015. Last year s deadly wave of heat in India was the fifth deadliest in recorded history.Think Progress reports:According to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, India is getting hotter as humans continue to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With these increases in heat, the report   produced by 1,250 international experts and approved by every major government in the world   said with high confidence that the risk of heat-related mortality would rise due to climate change and population increases, along with greater risk of drought-related water and food shortages.Today there are 330 million people in India who do not have access to enough water to fulfill their daily needs.The country has reported higher than average temperatures throughout 2016.As Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, explained to Think Progress, the unprecedented heat waves sweeping across India are happening with  current global warming levels of just 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. If we continue down this same path, scientists say global temperatures will rise seven to nine degrees by the end of the century.Climate change denying republicans in Congress should be required to spend some quality time in India. Maybe walking on melting roadways and baking in a slow oven, set to 124 degrees F, would help them come to grips with reality.Image credit: video screen capture via World Wide Viral on YouTube