People suffering in hot weather without electricity...
Dhaka, Bangladesh – Abdur Rahman nearly fainted while pulling his rickshaw under the scorching sun in Bangladesh’s capital city. “It is not possible to continue doing this in such weather,” he told.
The slum in Dhaka where Rahman lives has hardly had any electricity at night for the last few weeks.
After a hard, laborious day, I used to get some sleep. Now my sleeps are disrupted without a fan. I wake up many times, drenched in sweat,” he said.
A crippling power crisis has added to the misery of the Bangladeshis as they reel under the country’s longest heat wave in decades.
Tens of thousands of primary and secondary schools have been shut down by the government this week as temperatures surged to more than 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in Dhaka. Other cities such as Rangpur recorded a high of 41 degrees Celsius – the highest there since 1958.
Officials at the Bangladesh Meteorological Department said they had not seen such a prolonged heat wave since the country’s independence in 1971.
Operations at Bangladesh's bigger power plant were suspended due to the government is unable to import fuel because decline in foreign exchange reserves and the depreciating value of the Bangladeshi taka which depreciated about 25 percent against the US dollar last year.
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