Thousands of Bangladeshis gathered to pray for rain in the middle of the extreme heatwave that has prompted authorities to shut down schools around the world’s eighth most populated country.

Searing heat has forced at least 33 million children out of schools in Bangladesh, as temperatures in parts of the country soared above 42°C (108 F) –16 degrees more than the annual average.

Schools and colleges will be shut for at least until April 27.

This is the second consecutive year that Bangladesh has been forced to close schools. It comes just weeks after school closures in both the Philippines and South Sudan as a persistent heatwave sweeps across Asia.

“Children in Bangladesh are among the poorest in the world, and heat-related school closures should ring alarm bells for us all,” Save the Children's Bangladesh director Shumon Sengupta said.

Bangladesh’s weather bureau says average maximum temperatures in the capital Dhaka over the past week have been 4-5 degrees Celsius (7.2-9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 30-year average for the same period.

The country’s weather authorities issued its fourth heat alert for the month on Thursday.

Muslim worshippers gathered in city mosques and rural fields on Wednesday to pray for relief from the scorching heat.

“Praying for rains is a tradition 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 people in central Dhaka, told the AFP news agency.

“Life has become unbearable due to lack of rains,” he said. “Poor people are suffering immensely.”

Police said similarly sized prayer services were held in several other parts of Bangladesh.

The country’s largest Muslim party, Jamaat-e-Islami, issued a statement calling its members to join the prayer services planned for Thursday as well.

Bangladesh’s weather authorities expect the extreme heat to continue for at least another week.

Hospitals and clinics have been asked to prepare for a higher patient load due to heat-related illnesses such as fever and headache.

Patients suffering from heatstroke will be admitted in air-conditioned wards, Health Minister Samanta Lal Sen said earlier this week.

“Leaders need to act now to urgently reduce warming temperatures, as well as factoring children – particularly those affected by poverty, inequality and discrimination - into decision making and climate finance,” Sengupta said.

Bangladesh is one of the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, with the Global Climate Risk Index classifying the low-lying country in 2021 as the seventh most extreme disaster risk-prone country in the world.

The UN children’s agency has warned that more than 243 million children across East Asia and the Pacific are at risk of heat-related illnesses and death.

UNICEF said unusually high temperatures pose “grave risks” particularly to newborns and infants, as they are less able to regulate their body temperatures than adults.

It urged “parents to be extra vigilant in keeping their children hydrated and safe” through the heatwave, saying in a statement: “The severity of this heatwave underscores the urgent need for action to protect children from the worsening impacts of climate change.”