Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat,” with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use.
Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia.
On Tuesday, four weather stations in Myanmar hit or matched record monthly temperatures, with Theinzayet, in the eastern Mon State, reaching the highest at 43°C.
Photo: EPA
On Wednesday, Bago, northeast of the city of Yangon, reached 42.2°C, matching an all-time record previously recorded in May 2020 and April 2019, climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera said.
There had been “endless record heat in southeast Asia, with weeks of records falling every day,” Herrera said.
In Thailand, authorities last weekend advised people in Bangkok and other areas of the country to stay home to avoid becoming ill.
Temperatures hit 42°C in the capital on Saturday last week, and the heat index — meaning what the temperature feels like combined with humidity — reached 54°C.
Many people still braved the sticky weather — sheltering under umbrellas and carrying fans to stay cool, or seeking respite in air-conditioned malls. In some areas, water has been sprinkled from apartment or university buildings, to ease temperatures and air pollution caused by seasonal agricultural burning.
Rain on Wednesday in Bangkok brought respite from the heat, and the authorities have said they believe the hot season has peaked.
The hot weather has contributed to record electricity consumption in Thailand, with the country consuming more than 39,000 megawatts on April 6 — higher than the previous record of 32,000 megawatts in April last year.
In the Philippines, managing the heat is a challenge because the school calendar shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning students now spend the hottest months of the year in classrooms.
Last month, more than 100 students were treated in hospital in Laguna, southeast of Manila, due to dehydration after taking part in a fire drill when temperatures reached up to 42°C.
Globally, last year ranked as one of the hottest years on recorded, and the past eight years were collectively the hottest documented by modern science.
A predicted return of the El Nino weather phenomenon this year is thought to cause temperatures to rise even further.
“The poorest of the poor are going to [suffer] the most. Especially, it is devastating for the farming community, the people who are dependent on agriculture or fishing,” Climate Analytics regional lead analyst Fahad Saeed said.
“The heat is not foreign to this part of land,” he said, adding that temperatures are rising beyond the limits of people’s adaptability.
Earlier this month in Bangladesh, temperatures rose higher than 40°C in the capital, Dhaka, marking the hottest day in 58 years and causing road surfaces to melt.
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development has raised concern about the effect of global warming on the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.
The region holds the third-largest body of frozen water in the world, and is warming at double the global average, the center said.
“In the most optimistic scenario, limiting global warming to 1.5°C, the region stands to lose one-third of its glaciers by 2100 — creating huge risk to mountain communities, ecosystems and nature,” center climate specialist Deepshikha Sharma said.
“Human-induced climate change is the major cause of the growing number and ferocity of heatwaves we’re seeing across Asia. These signal to the fact that the climate emergency is here for this region,” Sharma said.
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