SCARYING HEAT RECORDS IN ASIA THREATEN

 THE POOREST

For the first time in its history, Thailand has just recorded temperatures of over 45°C. On April 15, 45.4°C was measured in Tak, a province in the northwest of the country and bordering Burma, according to data from the Thai Meteorological Department. The previous record dates back to 2016, when nearby Mae Hong Son region recorded 44.6°C. The country's weather service has warned that this weather will continue into next week. "It is possible that the heat of this year will be exacerbated by human activity," said Thanasit Iamananchai, the deputy director general of this service, joining the UN experts who warned in March about the risks of extreme episodes linked to global warming higher than they had estimated in 2014.

"This year's record heat in Thailand, China and South Asia is clearly a climate trend and will pose public health challenges for years to come," said Fahad Saeed, a researcher at the Climate Institute. Analytics, based in Pakistan.

Ditto in Central Asia, where Turkmenistan also set a heat record for the month of April: 42.2 ° C were measured in Uch-Adzhi, in the east of the country, notes British meteorologist Scott Duncan on Twitter . With 38.1°C in Uzbekistan, 35.1°C in Kazakhstan (including 33.6°C in the Taraz highlands, a record for the month of April) and 35°C in Tajikistan, the wave of heat extends in many territories of Central Asia.

Public health challenges

“It is not just hot during the day, extremely high nighttime temperatures have also been recorded. At night, temperatures do not drop below 28°C,” says meteorologist Scott Duncan.

In addition, the extreme heat will hit the poorest the hardest. It could even be a life-threatening risk for those who do not have access to air conditioning or suitable shelters On Monday, Indian authorities announced that eleven people had died of "heat stroke", during a handover of price which about a million people attended, in full sun. Since 2010, heat waves have killed more than 6,500 people in India. In Bangladesh, hundreds of people gathered this week in Dakha, the capital, to pray for beneficial rain, as the temperature reached 40.6 degrees Celsius, a record high since the 1960s. for the temperature to drop, and to be protected from the heat wave," local police chief Abul Kalam Azad said.

Global warming makes heat waves more frequent, more intense and earlier. Severe heat waves are on the rise around the world, experts say. The impact of human activities on the climate makes heat waves more frequent, more intense and earlier in the year. According to scientists, the probability of occurrence of unprecedented and very intense events increases with each tenth of global warming.

Thus, at +2°C, "1.7 billion additional people will be exposed to high heat, 420 million to extreme heat and around 65 million to exceptional heat waves every five years", warn the climatologist.