Updated 13.21 | Published 13.21
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Commuters try to avoid the sun during the heat wave in the Philippines’ Quezon City earlier in April.
1 / 3Photo: Aaron Favila/AP/TT
In Thailand, people are being asked to stay indoors. In the Philippines, schools suspend classes. In Bangladesh, people gather to pray for rain.
The weather phenomenon El Niño has led to dangerously high temperatures in parts of southern Asia. And the heat wave is expected to linger.
The temperature is expected to reach the “dangerous” heat index level – meaning 42 degrees or higher – in at least 30 cities and municipalities in the Philippines on Wednesday, according to meteorologists.
– It’s so hot that you can’t breathe, says 60-year-old Erlin Tumaron, who works at a hotel south of the capital, Manila.
The heat index measures what the temperature feels like, humidity and wind conditions included. In recent days, it has reached 48 degrees in some places.
Despite the heat wave, the complex’s swimming pools gape empty. Guests don’t want to leave their air-conditioned rooms.
“Avoid outdoor activities”
Nearly 6,700 Philippine schools have suspended their in-person classes on Wednesday. Around half of the country’s provinces are officially experiencing drought.
– You get a headache as soon as you go outside, says Mary Ann Gener in the province of Occidental Mindoro south of Manila.
In Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, the heat index is at the level of “extremely dangerous” – over 52 degrees.
“Warning: The heat index is “extremely dangerous” today. Please avoid outdoor activities,” authorities write on Facebook.
In Bangladesh, thousands of people gathered in mosques and in rural fields to pray for rain on Wednesday. Here, too, schools have been forced to close as a result of the heat wave.
“Became unbearable”
The average maximum temperatures in the past week have been between four and five degrees higher than normal, according to the authorities.
– Life has become unbearable due to the lack of rain. Poor people are suffering immensely, says Muhammad Abu Yusuf who leads a prayer for around 1,000 people in the capital Dhaka.
Large outbreaks of diarrheal diseases caused by the heat – and the resulting increased salinity in drinking water – are being reported from southern Bangladesh.
Last year, global temperatures broke heat records. The UN’s weather and climate agency WMO warned on Tuesday that Asia is warming at a particularly fast rate.
Climate change is leading to increasingly longer, more intense and more frequent heat waves, a long series of studies have established.
THE FACTS El Niño
El Niño and La Niña are phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather cycle. El Niño warms the surface water in the eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean while La Niña cools it.
El Niño returns on average every two to seven years and usually lasts nine to twelve months. The climax often occurs around Christmas, hence the name El Niño (the boy).
El Niño is associated with increased heat, drought or precipitation. It is mainly countries in the Pacific region that are affected, above all in Oceania, Indonesia and South America but also parts of North America and more distant areas across Asia and Africa.
In early July 2023, the UN weather agency WMO announced that El Niño had officially entered the Pacific Ocean. In April 2024, the most critical period was found to be over.
The 2023-2024 El Niño is said to be one of the five strongest ever recorded.
Sources: WMO, SMHI, NOAA
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