Southeast Asia ‘in a frying pan’ as extreme heat ‘rewrites climatic history’

Of course, such challenges are not unique to southeast Asia. The outlook is similar in South Asia: India saw its longest April heatwave, with a “code red” warning issued for Kolkata as temperatures reached 46°C; in Bangladesh, where the mercury rose to 43.8°C on Tuesday, 33 million pupils have been affected by school closures.

This spring, Africa has also suffered severe heatwaves.

In South Sudan, schools closed to some 2.2 million students in late March when temperatures soared to 45C, with similar temperatures recorded in Burkina Faso last month. On April 3, Kayes in Mali recorded 48.5C.

Local hospitals reported a surge of deaths in the sweltering heat. Gabriel Touré hospital in Bamako, Mali, recorded 102 deaths over four days in early April, compared with 130 deaths over the entire month in 2023. Many of the dead were aged over 60, while power cuts and the Ramadan fast added to people’s vulnerability.

Rising heat-related mortality is of particular concern. Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, told a recent conference that extreme heat had become a global “silent killer,” adding that it is “widely under-reported”.

“So the true scale of premature deaths and economic costs – in terms of reduced labour productivity, agricultural losses, and stress on the power grid – is not accurately reflected in the statistics,” she said.