With the hottest months of the year finally behind us in Bangladesh, we're reflecting on the multiple months of extreme heat we faced in 2024. Our vantage point for the year was inside Korail, Bangladesh's largest slum. It is in places like this, where heat and poverty violently collide, that have led economists to coin a new term - heat poverty.
I came into the room and saw he was gone. Panic gripped me.
Then I heard a giggle and saw two tiny legs sticking out from under the bed.
Why are you hiding under the bed, Nasir?
I'm not hiding, Amma (mother). This is the only part of the house that's not hot.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Hide and seek to cope with a heatwave.
Bangladesh baked in 2024. The country experienced its longest heatwave on record in April, and heatwaves have continued throughout the months of May and June.
Six year old Nasir Ahmed felt the heat. Nasir lives in a 150 square feet (the size of a large single garage) two-room house in Karail, in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. Korail is the largest slum in Bangladesh, situated next door to the country's most affluent suburbs. Nasir lives with his mother, Bilkis Banu, his father and his grandmother. Nasir's situation is increasingly common - every third person in Dhaka now lives in a slum. It's not just Bangladesh, either - how to tackle the heat in slums is an increasingly relevant topic worldwide, with every seventh person globally now living in a slum, or in slum-like conditions.
Too hot for electricity
Slums are congested places. In Korail, for example, there are almost 88,000 people per square kilometre. There is little room to breathe, even in cool weather. In heatwaves, Korail now gets so hot you can cook an egg. Homes in Korail are mostly made of tin sheeting, which can get up to 75 degrees celsius. Eggs start to cook at 60 degrees.
Windows and airy house designs provide some respite, growing vines on top of roofs helps, and fans are widely used. Air conditioning is not an option, even for families that could afford it and live in homes that could accommodate it, like Nasir's neighbour Nusrat. Nusrat is the same age as Nasir, and has felt the benefits of this seemingly magical device - 'it was a big change, I wasn't tired for school anymore - but we had to stop using it after the big fire.'
The big fire Nusrat refers to was one of four separate fires recorded in Korail this year alone. Fires are common in slums, but they're getting even more common, and many are caused by electrical short circuits. Extreme heat melts the poor quality wiring that hangs like spiderwebs between every house, connecting small devices like electric bulbs to larger devices like televisions and refrigerators, to the national power lines. Even the smallest spark can cause a devastating fire. With houses so close together, and flammable material often readily available, fire spreads rapidly. Fire brigades are often unable to respond quickly because of a deadly combination of dense housing and people; narrow, poor quality roads; and an unavailability of easily accessible water sources. This year, in addition to seeing wires which had melted in the sun, we even saw power sockets which had melted - a definite fire hazard.
Heat impacts start even before birth
A few yards away from Nasir, under the shade of a large old oak tree, Bilkis runs daily courtyard meetings. Women who don't work outside their homes take a break from their daily housework and come together to chat about their day.
20 year old Salma, who is five months pregnant, soaks in maternity advice from Fatema, a BRAC community health worker. "We try to raise pregnancy-related awareness in these informal sessions; extreme heat causes serious physical discomfort and increases the risk of dehydration and heat-related complications. I have been working for a decade in Korail now, and heatwaves are getting worse every year," says Fatema. She is responsible for sharing knowledge on nutrition, safe delivery, and family planning with 50 households in the local area. She has a special bond with Nasir, who was delivered in the local BRAC maternity centre.
Extreme heat globally has been associated with stillbirth, preterm birth and a range of other adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Extreme heat also hits students hard
Schools are shut during heatwaves, news which would usually be met with joy - but it's too hot to play outside.
2024 was the second consecutive year Bangladesh was forced to close its schools, a decision that affected 33 million children. During one of the hottest periods they were reopened after a week, but forced to close again after two teachers died and multiple students fell ill. Extreme heat not only closed schools in Bangladesh, but also in countries like the Philippines and South Sudan.
Most schools in Bangladesh have tin roofs, like Nasir's house in Korail. While teachers and students try to stay cool through ventilation and fans, air conditioning is neither affordable nor would be effective in these buildings - not to mention the dangers it presents. The fact that Nasir doesn't have air conditioning in his house or school is not uncommon - only about 8% of the 2.8 billion people living in the hottest - and often poorest - parts of the world currently have air conditioned homes.
"I stay indoors all day and play on my mom's phone under the bed. It's cool and no one bothers me. I only come out when it gets cooler," says Nasir, explaining his coping strategy.
Livelihoods melting away
Extreme heat also directly hurts people's pockets. Many Korail residents earn their living by toiling under the sun, often through pulling rickshaws. According to a BRAC rapid field survey during the May 2024 heatwave, rickshaw pullers were on average forced to work two hours less a day, meaning a 22% loss in income.
Last year, Manik Mia, a rickshaw puller in Korail, predicted extreme heat was here to stay - so he converted his manual rickshaw into a battery powered one. "I thought I would be able to work harder during the heat spells by pedalling less with the battery doing all the work. And it worked. Kind of," he smiled.
Challenges arose because of 'load shedding', the term for frequent power cuts that happen when demand for electricity outstrips supply, and the load on the national power grid has to be 'shed.' Load shedding now makes it impossible for Manik to fully charge his rickshaw overnight.
A half charged auto rickshaw means more pedalling. "I get tired in the heat, sometimes earning less than half a day's worth of fares - so I'm stuck with an expensive rickshaw, and less income," he says.
Manik is one of many. In Motijheel, the heart of Dhaka's commercial area, lies the iconic Baitul Mukarram mosque, which attracts tens of thousands of worshippers from across the city. The mosque is filled every day now - but not with people praying - these people are escaping the heat.
"I run two open-air shops down the street, and I normally only come to pray here on weekends. But now I am here daily; the mosque is the only place in the entire area with air conditioning and fans that is open to regular people like me. It's been so hot I have had no choice but to cut my working hours and stay inside," explained Akkas, who runs a shoe and clothing store down the street. This is the third consecutive year Akkas has had to decrease his working hours because of the heat. If this continues next year, Akkas will have to shut down one of his shops, and reduce his working hours significantly for at least a couple of months.
Akkas' experiences reflect the situation globally - while the richest countries have lost about 1.5% of their annual per capita GDP to heatwaves, poorer countries have lost 6.7%.
The next time I saw Akkas, that respite had disappeared too - the mosque authorities had turned off the air conditioning because of mounting bills.
A hotter future
While the whole world will be affected by extreme heat, people like Nasir, Bilkis and Akkas will be hit a lot harder. We urgently need to support them to adapt. Countries like Bangladesh are still receiving as little as 3% of the funding they need to adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis, and less than 10% is actually reaching the most intended communities. More funding is needed, and it needs to get to the people like the residents of Korail.