YANGON - Myanmar recorded its highest-ever April temperature of 48.2 deg C, the authorities said on April 29, as the South-east Asian nation bakes in a heatwave.

The mercury hit 48.2 deg C in the town of Chauk in central Myanmar’s Magway region on April 28, according to a statement from the country’s weather office, the highest temperature seen anywhere in Myanmar in April since records began 56 years ago.

The same day temperatures hit 40 deg C in commercial hub Yangon and 44 deg C in the second city of Mandalay, the weather office said.

“It was too hot here, and all of us just stayed at home,” said one resident of Chauk, which is located in Myanmar’s arid central plains.

“We can do nothing when it’s like this,” he told AFP, asking not to be named.

Across swathes of Myanmar’s arid heartland daytime temperatures on April 25 were 3 to 4 deg C higher than the April average, according to the country’s weather monitor.

Global temperatures hit record highs in 2023 and the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organisation said Asia was warming at a particularly rapid pace, with the impact of heatwaves in the region becoming more severe.

Scientific research has shown climate change is causing heatwaves to be longer, more frequent and more intense. AFP