Temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius with devastating effects on people and nature: Southeast Asia is suffering from the longest heat wave in decades – caused by a mixture of climate change and El Niño.
Hundreds of thousands of dead fish float on the surface of a lake in Vietnam. In Cambodia, the government is shortening school teaching times. In Thailand, more than 30 people have already died as a result of the heat. The thermometer in Southeast Asia sometimes shows more than 40 degrees Celsius. The perceived temperature is much higher – more than 50 degrees Celsius. This is life-threatening for animals and people.
Street vendor Buppha Nakhin spins meatballs on a grill in Thailand’s capital Bangkok. “Sometimes I feel dizzy. Cold water helps,” she says. And she tries to stay in the shadows. She told a reporter from the AFP news agency that she had never experienced it so hot.
Boonsri Waenkaew stops at their stand with his scooter. He delivers food and spends all day on the streets of Bangkok, where there are few trees and shade and the concrete surfaces are particularly hot. “I sometimes feel like I’m breaking down when I’m outside. But I have no choice. I have to work,” he says.
Unicef: 240 million children at risk
Those who can and have enough money stay in apartments, cafes and offices with air conditioning. In Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam, authorities are warning people to go outside because of the heat. In Cambodia, the government has shortened school hours by two hours per day to protect children from the massive midday heat.
A statement from the children’s charity Unicef said more than 240 million children in the Asia-Pacific region are at risk of a variety of illnesses and even death due to increasingly hotter and longer heatwaves.
Weather phenomenon occurs every few years
Climate experts attribute the current heat wave to climate change, exacerbated by a strong El Niño. A weather phenomenon that occurs every few years and brings very hot, dry weather. “I feel like the seriousness of climate change is not being recognized,” says Professor Benjamin Horton, a climate scientist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
“This time next week there will be another climate-related disaster. People will tragically die or lose their belongings – all because we weren’t listened to.” Horton has been researching climate change for 25 years. However, his and his colleagues’ findings are being ignored, which is increasingly frustrating them.
In Thailand, people therefore pray for rain. Dozens of people march in a procession through the streets of a village in central Thailand. It hasn’t rained here for months. Water is already running out on the holiday island of Ko Samui. Farmers fear for their harvest. According to local media, chickens are currently laying fewer and smaller eggs because of the heat.
“Stop the emission of greenhouse gases”
Extreme temperatures have dominated the news in Southeast Asia since the end of April. Heat records are being broken and health warnings are being issued everywhere. Professor Horton says heatwaves will become even more frequent in the future: “Unfortunately in the future they will be even hotter, they will last longer and affect more and more people until we solve the problem. And the problem is: stop the emission of greenhouse gases. “
People in Southeast Asia are currently feeling the effects of climate change particularly strongly. Many people in the region are wondering how livable and livable their home will be in the future.