by It’s water festival time in Thailand where many are marking the country’s traditional New Year, splashing each other with colorful water cannons and buckets in an often raucous celebration that draws thousands of people, even as this year marks a nation Southeast Asia’s highest temperatures ever. concern.
The festival, known as Songkran in Thailand, is a three-day shindig that begins on Saturday and informally runs for an entire week, allowing people to travel for family celebrations. The holiday is also celebrated under different names in neighboring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which like Thailand have predominantly Theravada Buddhist populations.
Songkran is extremely popular – this year it is predicted to attract more than 500,000 foreign tourists and generate more than 24 billion baht ($655 million) in revenue, according to the state tourism agency. Thai governments in the past have been reluctant to dial down the fun even during crises like drought and the pandemic
Although the festival originated to pray for a rainy season that helped crops and included activities such as cleaning Buddha images and washing the hands and feet of ancestors, Songkran these days is often associated with public drunkenness, sexual assault in the country. a manner of making fun, and a spike in traffic deaths, significant to the point that the extended holiday was called “seven dangerous days”.
The festival usually falls at the hottest time of the year when temperatures can creep above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
But this year, the unusual heat wave, and the higher temperatures expected in the coming months, have caused concern. The United Nations Children’s Fund warned Thursday that the sweltering weather could put millions of children’s lives at risk, urging caregivers to take extra precautions.
A UNICEF statement in the Asia-Pacific region said, “some 243 million children are exposed to hotter and longer heat waves, putting them at risk of a host of heat-related illnesses, and even death.”
Heat waves can be deadly because they affect the ability to breathe, making the old and the young very vulnerable.
Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory in Singapore where natural phenomena such as climate change are studied, said that three factors determine heat waves; El Nino, a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific Ocean, an increase in global temperature and human-caused climate change.
The poor are particularly vulnerable to heat waves, which are worse in many Southeast Asian cities where concrete buildings slow down the weather and few trees provide shade, he said.
Horton added that the past year saw the highest average global temperatures on record and that the heat waves in Southeast Asia were in line with that trend, adding that “it’s only going to get worse”.
The entire Mekong Delta, including Vietnam as well as Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, saw extreme heat, with parts of Laos and Thailand seeing temperatures of 5-7 degrees Celsius (41- 44.6 degrees Fahrenheit) more than average between April 3-9, according to the Mekong Dam Monitoring program of the Stimson Center in Washington DC
This extreme heat also means less water for hydropower dams to produce energy.
“Heat waves have put significant pressure on power systems, from increasing energy demand to compromising grid capacity. “Hydropower generation is particularly affected” when droughts lead to heat over the years, according to Dimitri Pescia, Southeast Asia director at Germany-based think tank Agora Energiewende.
“The cumulative, amplified effects of climate change are causing great distress to society and ecosystems,” he said.
Singapore’s Horton said there was a need to drastically reduce global warming carbon emissions as people learn how to adapt to the new climate, including learning the dangers of too hot weather and create emergency response authorities to warn people about high temperatures in advance and provide them. areas to be cooled when necessary.
Last week, the Philippines suspended classes in more than 5,800 public schools and moved to home and online learning to protect millions of students from the scorching heat.
Schools in several cities, including the congested capital Manila, moved classes to early morning to avoid sweltering midday and evening temperatures. Also, thousands of students in grade schools and high schools were allowed to go to school and take classes online every other day, officials said.
Medical doctor Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna-Pangan, said that they have limited outdoor activities especially if the heat index rises to an extreme level. “If people outside don’t have urgent tasks, the best precaution really is to stay inside.”
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Associated Press writers Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines contributed to this report. Asia Business Climate correspondent Aniruddha Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.
