Six newborn babies died within hours of each other in a private hospital in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Wednesday, prompting an investigation into whether a failure of air conditioning during extreme heat was responsible.
The babies, between one and three days old, were in the post-delivery ward of the Ad-Din Medical College Hospital when they fell ill early on Wednesday. Five were put on ventilators but couldn’t be saved. A sixth also died.
Prabhat Chandra Biswas, head of the health department, said air conditioning in the ward hadn’t been working in the early hours when temperatures in the city were around 32C.
"There is no alternative ventilation once the air conditioner is turned off," he told reporters, saying the atmosphere inside had been suffocating.
"An investigation is underway and we need some time to determine the cause of the deaths of the newborns," Nahida Yasmin, a director at the hospital, said.
Health department spokesman Zahid Raihan said the initial information available to the authorities did not point to mistreatment, adding that investigators were checking if there had been technical faults in the air conditioning or other electrical equipment.
A senior Dhaka police official confirmed they had received reports of unnatural deaths in the neonatal ward of the hospital.
Bangladesh, like much of South Asia, is enduring a punishing stretch of extreme heat. Temperatures across India and Pakistan repeatedly crossed 45C in recent weeks, with Banda in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh recording a peak of 48.2C.
Delhi recorded its warmest May night in almost 14 years, with the minimum temperatures touching 32.4C.
In the southern Indian state of Telangana, at least 16 people have died from heatstroke this summer.
Scientists say temperatures touching the high-40s across the region are no longer extreme weather events but a regular feature of the pre-monsoon season, with a study by World Weather Attribution finding the likelihood of such heat occurring is tripled by the climate crisis.
Bangladesh sits in the same climatic belt and is exposed to the same convergence of moisture and heat that is making this pre-monsoon season particularly brutal in South Asia.
Dhaka, a densely populated city of over 20 million people, has little green cover and limited ventilation in many of its buildings, leaving it acutely vulnerable to heat stress.
