The Tripura government on Monday announced to shut all schools in the state from April 18 to 23 in view of the severe heat wave condition.

Taking to Twitter, Tripura chief minister Manik Saha, who also holds the education portfolio, said: “The heat wave across the state may cause bad impact on the health of the students. In this view, the state government has decided to keep all the government-run and grant-in-aid schools closed with effect from April 18, 2023, to April 23, 2023.”

In another tweet, Saha said: “Besides, the private-run schools have been requested to keep their institutions closed during that period.”

According to a Met official, the maximum temperature recorded in Agartala on Sunday was 38.9°C, 6°C more than normal. Even the minimum temperature (27.8°C) was 5.6°C more than normal.

On Monday, the maximum temperature recorded was 38°C, 5.1°C more than the normal, but a dip from Sunday.

The Met official said the average maximum temperature in the northeast was 3°C to 6 °C more than the normal maximum temperature on Monday.

Guwahati (37.2°C) and Shillong (28.2°C), the capitals of Assam and Meghalaya, on Monday, recorded 6°C and 4.9 °C more than normal.

The highest maximum temperature recorded in Tripura was 42.2°C in 1960.

A Met official said temperatures are expected to dip after two days. He also said that one way to keep the northeast “normal” was to preserve its green ecology.

“Concretisation will lead to extreme weather conditions as we have been experiencing of late,” the official said.