DHAKA - Classes have been cancelled across Bangladesh due to the searing heat, but 13-year-old student Mohua Akter Nur found the soaring temperatures at home left her in no state for homework.
Millions of pupils were told to stay home this week as the South Asian nation swelters through one of its worst heatwaves on record, with temperatures between 4 deg C and 5 deg C above the long-term average.
Few schools in the capital Dhaka have air-conditioning and trying to conduct classes would have been futile.
Mohua’s cramped one-room home, shared with her parents and younger brother, feels almost as suffocating as the streets outside.
“The heat is intolerable. Our school is shut but I can’t study at home. The electric fan does not cool us,” she said. “When the power went out for an hour or two, it felt terrible.”
‘Unbearable’
Mohua’s mother Rumana Islam was laying down in a corner of their home after a sleepless night, coated in sweat after cooking for her family.
“Last year was hot but this year is too hot – more than ever. Just unbearable,” she said. “In the villages, you can cool off under the shade of trees. But here in Dhaka, all you can do is sit at home.”
Temperatures across the country have reached more than 42 deg C in the past week.
The heat prompted thousands of people to gather in city mosques and rural fields, praying for relief from the scorching heat that forecasters expect to continue through the weekend.
The Bangladesh authorities expect to reopen schools from April 28, before temperatures are expected to recede.
Scientific research has found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense.
The United Nations said this week that Asia was the region most affected by climate and weather hazards in 2023, with floods and storms the chief causes of casualties and economic losses.
Millions of people across South and South-east Asia have sweltered through unusually hot weather this week.
Bangladesh and its 171 million people are regularly battered by powerful cyclones and floods of increasing frequency and severity.
‘Like you are burning’
The latest bout of extreme weather has spurred an outbreak of diarrhoea in the country’s south, due to higher temperatures and the resulting increased salinity of local water sources.
Around the tenement building where Mohua’s family lives alongside dozens of other low-income families, adults dozed fitfully in their homes through the afternoon.
“The heat is so intense that it’s tough to be out driving,” said Mohua’s father, 40-year-old Mohammad Yusuf, who makes ends meet as a driver.
“You can get some respite when the air-conditioner is on,” he said. “But when you are outside, it feels like you are burning”. AFP
