YANGON: Delivery rider Than Toe Aung pedals his bicycle through a punishing heatwave in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, where scooters and motorbikes are banned. He can’t afford a car, and a previous junta outlawed two-wheeled motorized vehicles for “security reasons”, so the employee of the delivery app FoodPanda has no choice but to sweat his way through the streets under his own power.

Myanmar recorded its hottest ever April temperature of 48.2 degrees Celsius (118.76 Fahrenheit), authorities said Monday, as the Southeast Asian nation bakes in a heatwave. The mercury hit 48.2C in the town of Chauk in central Myanmar’s Magway region on Sunday, 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 40C in commercial hub Yangon and 44C 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 last Thursday were 3-4C higher than the April average, according to the country’s weather monitor.

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 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. In some places, authorities have advised citizens to stay at home, but there is no rest for workers like Than Toe Aung, who relies on his bicycle for income. “I sweat a lot when I am out working,” the 27-year-old told AFP after leaving his room for another scorching shift in the city of around eight million people.

The heat is unrelenting, but also good for business, Than Toe Aung said, as many other drivers choose to take a break, offering those ready to brave the temperatures a chance to make more. After several deliveries to offices and homes, he has a meal of rice and vegetables on the shaded steps of a shop. At every pick-up spot he searches for a shady patch.

“Sometimes we have to wait outside for 30 minutes while they prepare the food,” he said. For slogging through the energy-sapping heat, an average rider will make between 20,000 and 30,000 Myanmar kyat ($10-15) per day, he said. FoodPanda did not respond to an AFP request for comment on whether it gives guidance to its riders in Yangon on coping with extreme weather. — AFP