Temperatures this week hit a sweltering 111 degrees Fahrenheit in the Australian city of Campbelltown, in the state New South Wales — and the region’s scorching heat wave overwhelmed a colony of about 2,000 flying fox bats.

More than 200 bats, mostly babies, fell from the sky dead because there wasn’t enough canopy cover to shade them from the heat, a local wildlife group said on Facebook. It happened in the suburban community west of Sydney.

Even more dead bats remained hanging in trees, where volunteers who were desperately trying to rescue the bat colony could not reach them.

“I don’t know how many times I bent down and got on my knees to pick up a dead baby,” Campbelltown colony manager Kate Ryan told the Cambelltown MacArthur Advertiser. “There were dead bodies everywhere.”

A handful of adult bats were among the dead as well, the wildlife group said on Facebook.

“They basically boil,” Ryan told the newspaper.

But most “adults sought out shade and more shelter further up the creek resulting in many babies being left behind to deal with the heat,” the group wrote. Baby bats are more susceptible to extreme heat, the group added.

Across the Sydney area, more than 500 of the bats died over the weekend, the West Australian reports. As adults, the bats’ wingspans can reach more than a yard, and they weigh about two pounds. The flying creatures are vital pollinators who feast on pollen, nectar and fruit, according to Bat Conservation and Rescue.

There was good news, though: More than 100 bats were nursed back to health despite the heat, the Advertiser reports.

Volunteers used umbrellas to shelter the ailing bats from the sun, sprayed them with mist to cool them down and even injected them with fluid to rehydrate the young bats, Newsweek reports.

“The efforts of our volunteers yesterday was both heroic and heartbreaking,” a local wildlife non-profit wrote on Facebook.

“[T]his colony needs more canopy cover and shaded areas to help with our ever rising hot summers because this episode will surely not be the last,” the group said.

The culprit is the extreme heat that has plagued parts of Australia in the past week, Live Science reports. But climate change has made extreme heat waves in the country much more common, according to Gerald Meehl, head of climate change research at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

“They’re occurring under the framework of background temperatures being warmer, so a naturally occurring heat wave becomes more intense,” Meehl told Live Science, a science news website.

For every day of record cold set in Australia in between 2000 and 2010, there were two days of record heat, Meehl told Live Science — emphasizing the climate shift taking place on the continent.

About 20 of the rescued bats have required ongoing care, according to local wildlife group WIRES.

“Some of the pups are doing well, but for others it is still too early to tell if they will pull through,” the group wrote on Facebook.