Summer heat hits Asia early and kills dozens of people in what one expert calls the “most extreme event” in climate history.

New Delhi — It’s still spring, but hundreds of millions of people across South and Southeast Asia have already braved scorching temperatures. The summer heat arrived early, breaking records and even claiming lives, and is expected to get much worse during May and June, when summer really begins.

By early May, severe heat waves were already being blamed for nearly three dozen deaths across the vast region. Schools have been forced to close weeks before the summer holidays and huge areas of new crops have been planted on parched farmland.

Scientists warn of wide-ranging impacts in some of the world’s most densely populated regions and urge governments to take immediate action to prepare for the impact of climate change and do everything possible to mitigate human-caused global warming.

What is happening and where?

Several parts of India recorded high temperatures of more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit last month. On April 21, people in the eastern city of Bhagdora suffocated when the mercury hit 114.8 degrees.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday issued a “red alert” warning for the eastern and southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha, where temperatures have soared since mid-April. The IMD warned that the heat wave would get worse before it got better.

At least two people died in the southern state of Kerala due to suspected heatstroke over the weekend. Two other deaths were attributed to heat in the eastern state of Odisha in early April.

Scorching temperatures are hitting India right in the middle of a general elections underway in six weeks – in which almost a billion people have the right to vote – making campaigning and voting challenging.

Authorities in neighboring Bangladesh were forced to close all schools twice over the past two weeks amid the heat wave, with temperatures soaring to nearly 110 degrees on Monday.

Several areas in Myanmar have recorded record temperatures of around 115 degrees, with the heat index much higher. The heat index is a measure of what the temperature actually is. feel such as, taking into account humidity, wind speed and other factors.

Heat wave conditions have also been brutal in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, authorities closed thousands of schools as vast areas of the country suffered from drought and temperatures as high as 111 degrees, unprecedented for the region in early April.

In Thailand, authorities have urged people to stay home when possible, and 30 deaths have already been attributed to heatstroke this year. In the capital, Bangkok, authorities said Thursday’s heat index was an “extremely dangerous” 125.6 degrees.

In Vietnam, where temperatures topped 111 degrees, the national meteorological agency warned of the risk of forest fires, dehydration and heatstroke.

“Thousands of records are being brutalized across Asia, which is by far the most extreme event in global climate history,” climate historian Maximiliano Herrera said in a social media post last week.

What is causing the extreme heat?

Scientists are divided over the impact of the current El Niño climate phenomenon, but many believe that the temporary warming of the central Pacific, which has altered weather patterns around the world for years, has made things much worse this summer in the south and Southeast Asia.

“I think it’s a mix of El Niño, global warming and seasonality,” Professor Raghu Murtugudde, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, told CBS News. “El Niño is becoming La Niña. This is the time when maximum warming towards the Indian Ocean occurs. “So all of these things basically add steroids to the climate.”

But not all climate scientists agree.

“We saw heat waves even last year and it was not attributed to El Niño,” Professor Krishna AchutaRao, a scientist at the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, told CBS News.

Last year, Severe heat waves killed more than 100 people only in India and Pakistan in April and May, again destroying crops and affecting millions of people.

“Just like this year, last year the heat wave spread from parts of India to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and to Thailand. This year it went further east, towards the Philippines. So it’s the same pattern,” AchutaRao said . “I don’t particularly believe that El Niño is the cause.”

However, most experts agree that climate change is a major cause of the brutal heat hitting Asia this spring, and scientists said last year that Climate change made heat waves 100 times more likely..

AchutaRao, along with other scientists working with the Global climate attribution organization, have collected and analyzed data on last year’s heat waves in the region and the dozens of natural disasters that accompanied them in Laos and Thailand. The team “concluded that (extreme weather) events like these were not possible without climate change.”

“Climate change is exacerbating the frequency and severity of such events, profoundly affecting societies, economies and, most importantly, human lives and the environment in which we live,” Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general, said last month. of the World Meteorological Organization. .

Temperatures soared globally in 2023, making it the the hottest year ever recorded. The United Nations weather and climate agency said Asia was warming at a particularly rapid rate, causing extreme weather events such as floods, large storms and cyclones. more frequent and more dangerous.

The poor will suffer the most

Around the world, countries have tried to manage the impact of extreme weather events through early warning and warning systems, but Asia’s large, poor populations will be hardest hit by the impact of heat waves, Murtugudde told CBSNews.

The heat is likely to continue causing widespread damage to crops, further impacting the lives of farmers who have already faced increasing challenges in recent years, to the point that hundreds of thousands organized massive protests in India to demand help from the government.

Many national governments restrict outdoor activity in a bid to prevent deaths during extreme heat events, having a huge impact on blue-collar workers in the construction sector, a large part of Asia’s rapidly developing economies.

Scientists and environmental activists around the world have consistently urged nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, warning that it is the only way to slow the pace of global warming. Until that happens, experts fear the death toll will continue to rise and that millions of people will face a terrible choice with each new heat wave: work in dangerous conditions or go to bed hungry.