This weekend, Vietnam and neighboring countries in Southeast Asia recorded the highest temperatures ever: Saturday in Vietnam was 44.1 degrees Celsius. The previous national heat record, almost a degree less, was in 2019. Record temperatures were also measured this week in Thailand (44.6 degrees) and in Myanmar (43.8 degrees). In parts of India it is 3 to 4 degrees warmer than normal.
According to climate scientists, the “worrying records” are related to global warming. “I think this record will be broken many more times,” a climate expert from the Vietnamese capital Hanoi told AFP news agency.
Heat exhaustion
In Vietnam, at the urging of weather experts, authorities have advised people to stay indoors as much as possible during the hottest hours of the day. A 27-year-old says to the Vietnamese news site UN Express going to work early in the morning and not leaving until the sun has set. “Walking 300 meters feels like torture.” In Thailand and Malaysia, too, people hardly dare to walk on the street. “I saw people going to the local clinic because of heat exhaustion,” says an office worker in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Extreme heat waves can cause the extinction of hundreds of species of plants and animals. Humans are “irrevocably” responsible for global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases, according to the latest report from IPCC, the United Nations’ scientific climate agency.
Countries in Europe are also suffering from heat records. Last month, temperatures of around 40 degrees were measured in southern Spain. France and Spain are also experiencing large forest fires early in the year due to extreme drought.
Read also: With every increase in warming, the negative effects on people and the planet will ‘escalate’, says IPCC