Hundreds of schools in the Philippines, including dozens in the capital Manila, suspended in-person classes on Tuesday due to dangerous levels of heat, education officials said.
The country's heat index measures what a temperature feels like, taking into account humidity.
The index was expected to reach the "danger" level of 42 degrees Celsius in Manila on Tuesday and 43C on Wednesday, with similar levels in a dozen other areas of the country, the state weather forecaster said.
In the April-June period various parts of the country could record 10 to 20 heat-wave days compared to the normal four to eight days, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director-general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), told a virtual news conference.
In April, the crucial month for winter-sown crops coming to maturity, above normal maximum temperatures are likely across most parts of the country, said Mohapatra of IMD.
Most of the wheat harvested during this period is in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, while in northern states the crop is in the grain formation stage and the harvesting comes later, he said.
A heat wave curtailed India's wheat production in 2022, forcing it to ban exports.
Power demand usually spikes during the summer season and to ensure undisrupted supplies, power generation stations' maintenance schedule has been either deferred or has already been completed, said a government official.
India's power ministry has asked the state-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) to secure additional gas supplies in case of a surge in demand, the official added.
The writing is on the wall for most countries bordering on the equator. It's not even summer yet but shit's fucked and the most important countries will be the ones that have far northern territory, in Asia this will mean Russia and China. This is a true collapse scenario, not the bullshit "GDP isn't growing as fast as usual" that most analyst like to predict for China. I'm talking a substantial percentage of the population dying off every summer, droughts, crop failure, famines, blackouts as everyone cranks up their aircon at the same time. It's just gonna get worse and worse every year.
Barely anyone is talking about this. We're talking about wet bulb summer heatwaves that will 100% kill any human that without some sort of artificial cooling, turn entire crop harvest into dust and turn regions into desert. And even before getting to that point, the increased heat will still have some extremely negative effects on society as a whole. I live in a country where an hour worth of hard labor in the sun will likely give you heatstroke that could kill you even with all the water you can drink, the entire country basically lives in the shade and aircon and only really comes out at night, and that's with temperatures of 35 degrees, 40+ degree must be like living in an oven. And the countries on the forefront are barely doing anything about it.
This is why I think democracy doesn't stand a chance. If I was in charge of India or the philippines, or some other SEA country bordering the equator, my primary focus would be on surviving this impending disaster that's sure to come within the next 10-20 years, but because elections in a few years in more important and the average idiot is a brain dead idiot, the focus is on pissing off the industrial superpower that can provide us with the equipment to survive and a place to maybe flee to once shit hits the fan. Because it gets votes from nationalists and western dick suckers.
China and Russia not only have a large amount of northen territory that wouldn't have 50 degree heatwaves every summer, but China also makes the air-conditioning, nuclear/solar/wind power infrastructure that would be needed to survive a massive prolonged heatwave and also controls a lot of asia's rivers. Sure suck up to America, but unless they can somehow change the climate, airlift hundreds of millions out of the country or produce 1.5 billion air conditioning units along with the power generation to run them all at max power at the same time, you're fucked no matter how much military support or money that they give you.
This is why I'm not too concerned with India or the issue with the SCS. South asia is ultra-mega fucked in the long term, same with SEA. People talk about demographics issues for China but nobody ever talks about how India and countries in SEA will soon have heatwaves that will leave entire country sized areas uninhabitable without some sort of cooling system in the summer and how plants simply can't survive in 50+ degree temperatures, they simply wilt away within a matter of hours, like with humans in the same temperature.
Sure it won't be great for China too, southern and western China will have it's fair share of extreme heatwaves, there will be floods, droughts, heatwaves even in the far north. And China's own allies in Africa and south America will also massively fucked. But from what I can tell, China herself will be nowhere as badly impacted as those bordering the equator. And at least China has good relations with her northen neighbors. And the foresight for reliable renweable power generation and the wealth to have air-con for people.
I will get great schadenfreude once Indians realise that being on the hottest most humid countries on earth, while on a warming planet isn't a good place for developing a superpower due to the laws of thermodymnaics and biology, which is wayyy harder to fix than cultural, demographic and economical issues. You can fix all those, you can't change your climate or weather. I think they will regret not having good relations with the country with the cooler climate up north.
Same for America and Europe that are trying to prop up India and philippines to counter China, all in return for pushing Russia into China's arms. Same massively shortsighted thinking here. Russia may be a shithole now, but they're also in an area of the world that won't have heatwaves that threaten to kill you within a few hours of exposure. Again, they talk about how China's and Russia's demographics and economic issues doom it, but never talk about how India or the philippines will look like by 2050 in a warming world.
