Hundreds in heatwave-hit Bangladesh pray for rain
by AFP Employees Writers
Dhaka (AFP) April 24, 2024
Hundreds of Bangladeshis gathered to wish for rain on Wednesday in the course of an excessive heatwave that prompted authorities to close down colleges across the nation.
In depth scientific analysis has discovered local weather change is inflicting warmth waves to grow to be longer, extra frequent and extra intense.
Bangladesh’s climate bureau says that common most temperatures within the capital Dhaka over the previous week have been 4-5 levels Celsius (7.2-9 levels Fahrenheit) greater than the 30-year common for a similar interval.
Muslim worshippers gathered in metropolis mosques and rural fields to wish for reduction from the scorching warmth, which forecasters count on to proceed for a minimum of one other week.
“Praying for rains is a practice of our prophet. We repented for our sins and prayed for his blessings for rains,” Muhammad Abu Yusuf, an Islamic cleric who led a morning prayer service for 1,000 folks in central Dhaka, informed AFP.
“Life has grow to be insufferable on account of lack of rains,” he mentioned. “Poor individuals are struggling immensely.”
Police mentioned equally sized prayer companies have been held in a number of different elements of Bangladesh.
The nation’s largest Islamist celebration, Jamaat-e-Islami, issued a press release calling its members to affix the prayer companies deliberate for Wednesday and Thursday.
– ‘All linked to local weather change’ –
Authorities ordered all colleges final week to cancel lessons till the top of the month.
The UN kids’s company mentioned it was “urging mother and father to be further vigilant in preserving their kids hydrated and secure” by way of the heatwave.
“The severity of this heatwave underscores the pressing want for motion to guard kids from the worsening impacts of local weather change,” UNICEF mentioned in a press release.
Temperatures throughout Bangladesh have reached greater than 42C (108F) prior to now week.
“April is normally the most well liked month in Bangladesh. However this April has been one of many hottest because the nation’s independence (in 1971),” authorities forecaster Tariful Newaz Kabir informed AFP.
Kabir mentioned fewer rainstorms than common for the interval had contributed to the warmth.
“We count on the excessive temperature will stay till the top of this month,” he mentioned.
Hospitals within the southern coastal district of Patuakhali had recorded native outbreaks of diarrhoea on account of greater temperatures and the ensuing elevated salinity of native water sources, state medical officer Bhupen Chandra Mondal informed AFP.
“The variety of diarrhoea sufferers may be very excessive this 12 months,” he mentioned. “That is all linked to local weather change.”
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