Starting in April 2023, a record-breaking heat wave has affected many Asian countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
[6] Power cuts took place in parts of Bangladesh due to a surge in electricity demand caused by the heat wave.
[6] The Ministry of Labour issued an advisory to all states and regions to provide workers with adequate drinking water, emergency ice packs and frequent breaks.
[12] Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, closed all schools in the state between 17 and 22 April due to concerns about the heat.
[20] The incident happened at a government event where Union Home Minister Amit Shah presented social worker Appasaheb Dharmadhikari with the Maharashtra Bhushan award.
Uddhav Thackeray, the former chief minister of Maharashtra, and Ajit Pawar, the head of the NCP, went to the hospital to inspect the situation and criticise the organisation of the event.
Concerns regarding the need for improved planning and procedures to stop similar catastrophes in the future have been raised in response to the tragedy.
[28] Tieh-Yong Koh, an associate professor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, said in May that the prolonged dryness across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam is due to suppressed rainfall during the previous winter.
Cambodia's Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology predicted that hot weather would continue until mid-May, with less rainfall than in 2022.
[35] On 16 May, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that there were no immediate plans to declare the heat wave an emergency, but the government would do so if necessary.
Media reports said that there were 61 deaths due to heat-related problems, but Radio Free Asia was unable to verify the number.
[39] The Department of Education announced that from 24 April, schools would be able to move classes online at their discretion to avoid the heat.
[41] 839 schools switched to distance learning to prevent students from falling ill due to the extreme heat.
[44] On the following day, the temperature in Ang Mo Kio hit 37.0 °C (98.6 °F), tying the record set on 17 April 1983 at Tengah.
[47][48] Singapore's Meteorological Service said earlier in May that the country was "not currently experiencing a heatwave" despite recently recording relatively high temperatures.
[7] Thousands were forced to flee from Chiang Mai due to pollution caused by the annual burning in northern Thailand and Myanmar.
[32] On the next day, there were reports of people fainting due to the extreme heat, including advance voters in the 2023 general election.
[29] A May study by the World Weather Attribution found that Thailand's record heat wave was exacerbated by high humidity and a large number of forest fires that occurred around the same time.
[52][53] The Hòa Bình province recorded the highest temperature in 27 years for March in Kim Bôi district at 41.4 °C (106.5 °F).
[54] On 6 May, the temperature in Hội Xuân [vi], about 150 km south of Hanoi,[55] reached 44.1 °C (111.4 °F), surpassing the country's previous record of 43.4 °C (110.1 °F) in 2019.
[58] EVN warned that high temperatures could put pressure on the national power system due to a spike in electricity consumption and lower-than-normal water levels in some dams.
[62][63][64] Two days later, on July 18, John Kerry, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate visited Beijing and mentioned the Sanbu weather to Li Qiang, the Premier of China.
[68] On 22–23 April, a cold front sweeping south and east triggered a significant drop in temperatures, torrential rain and heavy snowfall in parts of northern China, with Shanxi reporting up to 24 cm of snow.
[31] In mid-May, Shandong province and Beijing issued heat warnings, with cities such as Jinan, Tianjin and Zhengzhou expecting temperatures to rise as high as 37 °C (99 °F).
[78] On 24 June, the red alert level was issued once again to all or part of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Henan and Inner Mongolia, with temperatures forecasted to hit at least 40 °C in 24 hours.
Anil Pokharel, the CEO of Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Authority (NDRRMA), said, "If we look at the pattern, the heat waves have become more and more severe and frequent in recent years and decades.
[85] Bloomberg News reported that Russia exported 7.6 million metric tonnes of coal to Asia in April, with India and China buying over two-thirds.