Heat wave to continue for a few days

It's unbearable. 

The scorching sun in this sultry weather of May has begun causing untold sufferings to many people.

A mild heat wave currently sweeping across the country is forcing people to stay indoors or seek cooler places to avoid the blistering hot weather.

"People feel warmer than the actual temperature if there is humidity in the air," said Abdur Rahman, duty forecasting officer of the met office.

Exacerbating the problem is the fact that there is no chance of rainfall in the city in the next two to three days.  The heat wave will thus continue for a few more days.

Rahman said the mild heat wave sweeping across places, including Dhaka, Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal divisions and the regions of Chandpur and Noakhali, will continue for a few more days.

The highest temperature recorded yesterday was 37.6 degrees Celsius in Jessore and Meherpur while it was 36.8 degrees Celsius in the capital. The weather may remain dry and unchanged for the next few days, the met office forecast said.

"During the end of this week, there might be rainfall in the central part of Dhaka, including the capital," said the duty forecasting officer.

Not only in the outside, the heat could be “felt” in social media also. The issue of temperature and the heat wave has become the dominant theme in social media discussions.

People are seen sharing a popular post that reads, “drink more water for the next seven days (May 22-28)....as the body get dehydrated very fast during this period”.

Another popular post suggests Facebook users to put some water on their rooftops so that birds in the city may get drinking water in this concrete jungle. 

Leena Parvin, an employee of a private firm, put up a status saying, “I did not feel like going home from office as it was too hot outside.”

Another Facebook user Aminul Sujan wrote that he wanted to lodge a complaint against the sun for inflicting this unbearable heat, but he did not know where to file the complaint.

In Dhaka city, day labourers, rickshaw-pullers and traffic police were seen facing difficulties in continuing their work and had to take frequent breaks.

City dwellers now prefer to rush to their homes soon after completing their daily work. But the weather has become a boon for the vendors and shops which sell seasonal fruits litchis, pineapple, green coconut, watermelon, lemon water and sugarcane as consumption of these has increased.

Roads, marketplaces and busy places in both rural and urban areas were deserted as people preferred to remain indoors to avoid the weather.

Furthermore, the load shedding is like adding salt to the injury, making life even more unbearable.

The situation is even worse in rural areas, particularly in northern parts of the country, as people have to spend more time in their farmland during the blistering heat.

In one area, people took to the streets and formed a human chain demanding the government arrange continuous supply of electricity.

Addressing the programme, speakers alleged that there had been power outages in Pirojpur as many as 15 times a day, causing untold suffering. 

Some journalists, lawyers and municipality councillors, among others, spoke at the programme.