‘Overwhelming’ heat a struggle for Bangkok’s outdoor workers
By Jitsiree Thongnoi
After working for three decades as a cleaner in Bangkok’s air-conditioned high-rise offices, 54-year-old Mayuree Gingsawas two years ago went into business for herself, launching a small tin-roofed roadside cafe.
She knew she would be working hard in the eatery, open from 10 am to 7 pm six days a week in Khlong Toei, a Bangkok district that includes slum areas where narrow roads snake among make-shift homes of aluminium sheets and grey apartment complexes.
What she didn’t count on was the heat.
In late April, as she laboured over the stove in her open-air kitchen, temperatures in Bangkok soared past 40 degrees Celsius, close to the city’s record of 41 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) set the year earlier.
“I felt like fainting but I did not,” Gingsawas remembers. “I was almost blacking out many times.”
“The heat was overwhelming,” she said, noting that an electric fan she ran made little difference. “All I could do was to pat water on my skin to cool down. I even tried to water the road to reduce the heat, but as soon as the water touched the concrete it dried up.”
In 2024, as nations around the world set heat records, Southeast Asia saw waves of extreme humid heat that sent temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius in many countries.
In Thailand, 30 people were reported killed by heatstroke in the last week of April, according to the country’s public health ministry. By early May, the number of recorded deaths had spiked to 61.
To try to keep people safe, Bangkok officials issued heat warnings and worked with public health officials, community volunteers and workers in parks, sports centers, childcare centers and schools to try to improve awareness of heat threats in the city of 9 million.
Some at-risk people also received home visits by doctors or volunteers, and stocks of medical equipment and supplies were boosted at city medical centers, officials said.
But such worsening extreme heat presents a serious threat to outdoor workers like Gingsawas, and to many others in Thailand and globally who live and work without sufficient access to cooling - especially those who live in densely packed urban settlements with little air flow or cooling trees, experts say.
Heavy use of concrete, glass and other heat-absorbing building materials in urban areas, as well as vehicle emissions, can produce an “urban heat island” effect that makes them even hotter than surrounding rural or suburban areas.
Lack of access to cooling green areas is also a problem in Bangkok and many other cities around the world.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority said in 2022 the city had about 1.5 square meters of green space per person, a figure it is now trying to boost closer to the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of 9 square meters per person by creating more than a hundred new small neighborhood parks.
Bangkok residents on average in 2022 needed to travel 4.5 kilometres to access their nearest green space, according to a study by Chulalongkorn University’s Urban Design and Development Center in Bangkok.
Danny Marks, a Southeast Asia environmental governance specialist, said the lack of greenery and plentiful heat-absorbing surfaces add up to a lot of growing heat stress for many city residents.
“In Bangkok, the urban heat island effect during the dry season can increase temperatures by as much as 6 to 7 degrees Celsius in densely built areas, with an average increase of 4 degrees across the city,” said the assistant professor of environmental politics and policy at Dublin City University.
Women - who around the world often earn less than men, have less stable employment and struggle to save - can be particularly at risk, experts say.
little respite
In Bangkok, the hottest temperatures recorded in April were in Khlong Toei, home to about 13,000 households - and Gingsawas’ cafe.
She wasn’t the only one struggling in the heat. Sudtini Rangdee, a volunteer emergency worker in Khlong Toei, said her community emergency center was busy in April managing heatstroke cases and other medical problems related to extreme heat.
“We got calls from labourers at Khlong Toei port. Another time we had to bring a patient down on a stretcher from the fifth floor, without elevators,” said Rangdee, whose team operates with two ambulances sized to fit through the slum’s narrow streets.
Among the patients, “some of them had heatstroke. Some had high blood pressure. Others reported weakness in their limbs. Some needed a ventilator as soon as they reached the ambulance,” she added.
Residents of Khlong Toei say they have little respite from the heat. Gingsawas and her husband, Sutin, 57, who began helping her at the eatery recently, say the only thing hotter than their open-air kitchen is their stifling rented two-story home, jammed between other houses and with just one window.
Running fans at home helps a bit but is expensive, she said.
“We rotate between our two fans at home, because we can’t afford the electricity bills that will rise from using them at the same time,” she said.
In a neighborhood where many homes are crowded with families, “the more people stay together at one time in the house, the hotter it is,” her husband added.
cooling bangkok
Much more work is needed in Thailand to reduce worsening heat in homes, workplaces and other public spaces, said Atch Sreshthaputra, a professor of architecture at Chulalongkorn University.
The government, for instance, should take “common sense” steps such as limiting outdoor work when temperatures pass certain heat thresholds, as well as painting streets in reflective white paint, he said.
In constructing new buildings, glass that helps block heat and keep buildings cooler inside, alongside extra insulation, could help keep people cooler - but property developers are often reluctant to pay the cost of such materials, Sreshthaputra said.
One serious problem is that new construction is not designed to keep residents or users cool instead requires heavy use of air conditioning - and running air conditioners not only is expensive and uses more energy, often from climate-changing fossil fuels, but adds to urban heat as the machines dump excess heat outside the buildings they cool.
Marks called it “a vicious circle”.
“As many buildings adopt energy-intensive glass-and-steel designs that require substantial cooling…the city’s widespread use of air conditioning also contributes to the urban heat island effect,” he said. “Shopping malls and office buildings consume vast amounts of energy to maintain cool environments, leading to significant heat dumping outdoors.”
Heat experts say finding ways to keep Bangkok’s workers and residents cooler as heat extremes grow will be crucial to protecting incomes, economic productivity and lives.
Gingsawas’ eatery in Khlong Toei, for instance, is now the only source of income for the family, after her husband quit his job as a security guard in February as a result of health problems. The pair also support two grandchildren who attend elementary school.
They say there is little they can do to better manage Bangkok’s worsening heat, though they have tried stretching a few plastic tarps over parts of their street kitchen to block the sun and rain.
They say they won’t add more. “I think we need as much ventilation as possible when the heat comes again,” Gingsawas said.