Across Asia, millions of workers and vulnerable populations are quietly bearing the weight of a health crisis that official statistics have yet to fully name. Extreme heat — intensified by climate change — is killing people through heart attacks, strokes, and organ failures that are recorded as medical events rather than climate disasters, rendering the true death toll largely invisible. From Manila's construction sites to Thailand's hospitals and Vietnam's drought-stricken fields, the 2024 heatwave made plain what researchers have long suspected: heat may already rival typhoons as a cause of
Asia's Silent Killer: Extreme Heat Emerges as Underestimated Health Crisis
At least 30 confirmed heat-related deaths in Thailand and 77 heat-illness cases in Philippines in 2024; outdoor workers like construction laborers face persistent health impacts including heat rashes and headaches.