As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout.
A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes.
Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season.
Photo: AFP
Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel generators must face at least eight hours daily at the mercy of the scorching heat.
For many in the city of about 8 million, relief comes only at night and outdoors with the metropolis’ parks offering natural shade and blissful breezes.
“My parents can’t stay inside their house in the afternoon. They have to go outside and sit under the shade of trees,” one Yangon resident said as she visited Inya Lake late on Friday.
She said her parents warn her about going outside, urging her to cover up.
“I feel this year is far hotter than last year,” she added.
Mya Aye, 62, said she comes to the park every day when the power goes off at 5pm.
“The weather at home is so hot that neither the children nor the elderly can stay,” she said.
Across swathes of Myanmar’s arid heartland day temperatures on Thursday were 3°C to 4°C higher than the April average, according to the Burmese Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.
In Chauk in Magway region, the temperature reached a blazing 45.9°C on Wednesday, the department said.
Back at Inya Lake, one man said that he and his family had traveled from the northern part of Yangon as they could not remain at home because of the heat.
“Even if we sit outside, the sun’s rays are very hot and we can’t sit anywhere,” he said.
“After 10am in the morning, it’s getting hotter and we can’t stand it,” he said, adding that older people were particularly affected.
“Elderly people are not going outside because of the heat and they just stay inside. After the sun is gone, they come out,” he said.
The frequent power outages only made the situation worse, he said, with homes emptying each evening.
“When there is a power blackout everyone sits out on the street until 9pm or 10pm,” he said.
Global temperatures hit record highs last year and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said Asia was warming at a particularly rapid pace, with the effect of heatwaves in the region becoming more severe.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS