‘Blast-furnace heat every day’: Record temperatures cancel classes, widening learning gaps across Southeast Asia

Hong Kong CNN —

When temperatures in Cambodia hit a staggering 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in April, Sek Seila, an 11-year-old student studying in the capital Phnom Penh, was promptly sent home from school.

Like hundreds of millions of other children in many parts of South and Southeast Asia, Sek Seila has had to cope with unprecedented setbacks due to record-breaking heat — like sudden school closures, and having lessons and activities canceled or disrupted.

School this year has been difficult, he says, adding that stifling heat and high humidity levels in poorly ventilated classrooms have been difficult to endure.

“My classroom does not have air conditioning,” Sek Seila told CNN. His class of 43 students pass around mini hand-held fans during lessons on most days to keep cool.

“It’s very unpleasant and uncomfortable,” he says. “On some days, it can even get so hot that it feels like your skin is burning.”

TOPSHOT — This aerial photo shows a fisherman collecting dead fish caused by renovation works and the ongoing hot weather conditions from a reservoir in southern Vietnam's Dong Nai province on April 30, 2024. Hundreds of thousands of fish have died in a reservoir in southern Vietnam's Dong Nai province, with locals and media reports suggesting the brutal heatwave and lake's management are to blame. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Hundreds of thousands of fish die off in Vietnam as heatwave roasts Southeast Asia

The hot weather has also been brutal in many South Asian countries where, science shows,climate change has brought stronger and morefrequent extreme weather events, like life-threatening heatwaves — leaving nearly half a billion children exposed and