Vietnam Breaks Temp Records as Extreme Heat Rocks SE Asia and India

Average high temperatures measured across the Asia-Pacific Regions on May 7, 2023. Legend on the right is in degrees Celsius. Image: Climate Reanalyzer, The University of Maine and the Climate Change Institute

RED ALERT!

Extreme heat is arriving faster for much of Asia than climatologists had predicted even just a few months ago.

The Hoi Xuan temperature, measured in Vietnam’s northern Thanh Hua province Saturday, broke the previous high of 43.4° C (110° F) set in 2019.

The heat has already forced changes for many who live in the country, with authorities recommending people stay indoors where possible. Those working on farms have shifted their working hours to complete their work in the fields by 10 AM.

In Hanoi, the capitol of the country and located in the northern region as well, the normally bustling downtown region was mostly empty of traffic and people by mid-day.

With the heat wave expected to continue for some time and little rainfall expected, local authorities are already warning of a tough week ahead. In Da Nang, a central Vietnam city with a population of 1.4 million located on the coast of the East Sea, the ministries of industry and electricity have joined forces to manage electrical power draw and insufficient water supplies.

Vietnam gets most of its power from dirty and deadly coal and is insanely building new coal-fired power plants as fast as it can. It proudly expects to double its coal fired plants by 2030.

The temperature records which fell followed a similarly dangerous climate pattern which dominated much of Southeast Asia from the end of April into early last week. Many of them made this weekend’s paralyzing heat in Vietnam seem cool by comparison.

Laos and Myanmar, also just west of Vietnam, were not spared from the heat either. Laos shattered its hottest temperature records for April 18 with a new high of 42.7°C (109°F). One week later, Theinzayet, located in Myanmar’s eastern state of Mon, also experienced highs of 43° C (109.4° F).

Further west, Thailand logged real temperatures of 54° C (129° F) in several regions including the tourist hub of Phuket on April 22. While that was the extreme for the nation, other areas were not spared from extremes that blew apart old records as well. Bangkok, which when coupled with high humidity reached a record heat index of  52.3°C (126°F), making it impossible to be outside even in the shade. In the northern province of Tak, an official weather monitoring station measured a high of 45° C (113° F) just a few days before the April 22 peaks.

That heat had been building up since early April, causing record usage of air conditioning which drove nationwide electrical power consumption as of April 6 to 39,000 megawatts in that single day. That broke the previous power consumption record of 32,000 megawatts by a 22% margin.

The government issued warnings similar to those just announced in Vietnam, to stay indoors if at all possible.

Further west, Bangladesh also saw its temperature records smashed as well, with weather stations in Ishwadi marking new highs of 43° C (109.4° F) on April 1. The same day this country’s capital city of Dhaka hit 40.4° C (104.7° F), the highest recorded in 58 years and hot enough that many of city streets melted.

Extreme heat was so widespread it spread across 16 districts of the country. Among those suffering the most were in Khulna, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Manikganj, Narayanganj, Rajshahi and Pabna.

As happened in Thailand, this put unprecedented stresses on the Bangladesh power grid.

“The current unprecedented heatwave, which has resulted in maximum temperatures hitting the highest level in over 50 years, has increased the demand for electricity much more than expected,” wrote Bangladeshi Energy Minister Nasrul Hamid, in a social media post published on April 18.

Laos and Myanmar, also just west of Vietnam, were not spared from the heat either. Laos shattered its hottest temperature records for April 18 with a new high of 42.7°C (109°F). One week later, Theinzayet, located in Myanmar’s eastern state of Mon, also experienced highs of 43° C (109.4° F).

Temperatures soared in late in April in India and Pakistan as well. Record highs of 43.5° C (110.3° F) were recorded in multiple locations in India last month. In Pakistan, temperatures spiked at 44.0° F (111.2°F).

Further south in the Philippines, heat records fell as well. Real temperatures were high throughout the country, with the national capital region (NCR) of Manila experiencing real temperatures up to 42.0° C (107.6° F). With unusually high humidity present also, the heat index was so high many public school students — who gather in packed classrooms with no air conditioning and often few fans — were passing out from the heat stress.

Even before the peak of the heat struck that area, on March 23, temperatures had already risen to a high of between 42° C (107.6° F) in Laguna, a coastal area located just southeast Manila. On that day, over one hundred students were hospitalized, immediately after participating in a fire drill held at Gulod National High School Mamatid Extension in the Cabuyao district there.

This year, classes in the Philippines are continuing through May as a result of an idiotic nationwide schedule change. This is despite that this is typically the hottest month of the year, with little cloudiness and rainfall disrupting the oppressive heat and rising humidity. Last May the heat index high for the country reached a lethal 51° C (123.8° F). This year is expected to cross that even further.

The Philippines has also begun to experience unplanned power blackouts. Those included two power outages which shut down the nation’s biggest airport twice in the last two weeks. The latest was a nine-hour blackout on May 1, as even backup power supplies failed.

All this is happening even before high heat and dryness associated with El Niño conditions even begin. That is expected to strike with full force throughout Asia and Southeast Asia by July at the latest. For much of the region, with the possible exceptions of India and Bangladesh as their monsoon seasons are expected to begin on schedule this summer, this will mean even hotter temperatures than were present in this month and in April.

It will also produce sufficiently less rainfall. At least one country, the Philippines, has managed to pull together an El Niño task force to plan what to do about it.

If the pattern continues as expected throughout Southeast Asia, there will also be tough tradeoffs to be made between keeping the hydroelectric power grids for the entire Mekong Delta operating as normal or allowing sufficient water from the Mekong River to flow through to support farmers and the beings that live in the river

While it gets even a bit hotter in some desert regions, it is the combination of high heat and high humidity is deadly. At wet bulb temperatures above 35°C, even healthy and strong people will overheat and potentially die within 6 hours. The extreme heat sickens and kills not just people, but wildlife and plants as well and disrupts entire eco-systems, including in the soil and waters — ecosystems that humans depend upon for their survival.

While there may be a minor break soon from what weather historian and climate crisis expert Maximiliano Herrera called April and May’s “endless record heat in south-east Asia, with weeks of records falling every day,” that may not last for long. More likely is that this summer will also be one for the temperature record books and bring the planet closer to accelerated mass extinction, especially as all of the countries listed above are busy increasing their greenhouse gas emissions to ensure their own demise and the demise of most all other life on Earth.

One company is diligently engineering the means for survival on a much hotter planet, with habitats that cool themselves, recycle water and nutrients while supporting bio-diversity. Their first climate-proof, self-sufficient, carbon neutral and truly sustainable habitat is called Tataouine Community and Research Center and it is now under construction in the Arizona desert by Climate Survival Solutions.