The effects of climate change are sweeping Southeast Asia, with an unprecedented heat wave hitting the Philippines, Thailand and Bangladesh, prompting school closures and strong travel restrictions.
April is considered one of the warmest months in these countries, but this year, the heat wave is exacerbated by the El Niño climate phenomenon, which drives the mercury to record levels. In Asia, the impact of heat waves is increasingly severe, the World Meteorological Organization underlined in a press release yesterday. The year 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded globally.
Today, the principles of Philippines advised citizens not to go outside as temperatures are expected to reach 42 degrees Celsius or more in at least 30 cities and communities in the Philippines. The Ministry of Education announced that almost 6,700 schools have suspended classes today.
Workers on the brink of fainting due to heat in Thailand
In Thailand, authorities advised thousands of residents in the capital Bangkok to stay indoors today due to heat levels deemed “extremely dangerous”. “Please avoid spending time outdoors,” Bangkok’s municipal government warned in a Facebook post.
The national weather service has predicted that the temperature will reach 39 degrees Celsius today in the capital. In this metropolis of 10 million people and a popular tourist destination, the mercury is expected to rise further in the coming days. Employees who are required to work outdoors, such as distributors or the Street vendorstry to stay in the shade and drink water to cope with these conditions, which are exacerbated by air pollution.
“Sometimes, I feel dizzy, but not to the point of fainting,” says Bupha Nakhin, a street meat vendor, on a sidewalk in central Bangkok. “I feel like I’m going to faint when I’m working outside, but I have no choice,” said Bunsri Waenkaeu, a moto-taxi driver.
They pray for rain
In the Bangladeshthousands of devout Muslims today decided to pray for rain in mosques and in the countryside across the country, where schools are closed until the end of the month.
“Praying for rain is a tradition of our prophet,” Muhammad Abu Yusuf, an imam, told AFP after his morning prayer before a thousand worshipers in central Dhaka. “Life is unbearable because of the lack of rain. The poor are suffering a lot,” he stressed.
Temperatures topped 42 degrees Celsius last week in the country. According to the weather service, the average maximum temperature in the capital Dhaka this week was 4 to 5 degrees Celsius higher than the 30-year average for the same period. “This month of April is one of the warmest since independence” in 1971, Tariful Nawaz Kabir, a meteorologist, told AFP.
Hospitals in the coastal region of Patuakali have reported local outbreaks of diarrhea due, among other things, to rising temperatures, as the country’s chief physician, Bhupen Chandra Modal, told AFP. “The number of patients with diarrhea is very high this year”, he continued to conclude that “this is all connected to climate change”, he underlined.
