Bangladeshis pray for rain as temperatures soar

DHAKA (AFP): Hundreds of Bangladeshi Muslims gathered on an open field in Dhaka on Monday to pray for rain after the metropolis of 20 million people recorded its hottest day in almost 60 years.

Police said more than 500 worshippers congregated on the Aftabnagar playing ground, where popular TV cleric Shaikh Ahmadullah led the prayers.

“They held the prayers for rains. They also held prayers for easing the temperature and protection from the heatwave,” local police chief Abul Kalam Azad told AFP.

The poor, low-lying South Asian nation of 170 million people is at the forefront of climate change with frequent deadly floods and ever-more-erratic rains.

The rains that usually fall in April and May have failed to materialise this year and the country has been gripped by unusually hot weather since April 4, Afroza Sultana from the Meteorology Department told AFP.

On Sunday temperatures in Dhaka soared to 40.6 degrees Celsius (105.1 Fahrenheit), the highest since April 30, 1965, when the temperature hit 42 degrees Celsius, she said.

Sultana said temperatures would gradually decline in the coming days and rains were expected later in April, just before the country celebrates its largest festival, Eid al Fitr.