But the government’s decision to shutter schools was no relief to 13-year-old Nur. Her cramped one-room home in the megacity, shared with her younger brother and parents, 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 told AFP. “When the power went out for an hour or two, it felt terrible.”
“Last year was hot, but this year is too hot – more than ever. Just unbearable,” said Nur’s mother Rusmana Islam. “In villages, you can step out and cool yourself under the shade of trees.
“There is some breeze coming from the farmland. But here in Dhaka, all you can do is sit at home.”
Bangladesh authorities expect to reopen schools from Apr 28, before temperatures are expected to recede.
Bangladesh and its 171 million people are already at the forefront of the global climate crisis, regularly battered by powerful cyclones and floods of increasing frequency and severity.
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 Nur’s family lives, alongside dozens of other low-income families, adults tried to block out the worst of the heat by dozing fitfully in their homes through the afternoon.
“The heat is so intense that it’s tough to be out driving in these conditions,” said 40-year-old Mohammad Yusuf, who like Nur’s father and many of their neighbours, 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”.
