Water guns are in full blast to mark Thai New Year festivities despite worries about heat wave

It's water festival time in Thailand where many are marking the country's traditional New Year, splashing each other with colorful water guns and buckets in an often raucous celebration that draws thousands of people, even as this year the Southeast Asian nation marks record-high temperatures causing concern.

The festival, known as Songkran in Thailand, is a three-day shindig that starts Saturday and informally extends for a whole week, allowing people to travel for family celebrations. The holiday is also celebrated under different names in neighboring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which like Thailand have populations that are predominantly Theravada Buddhist.

Songkran is immensely popular — predicted this year to attract more than 500,000 foreign tourists and generate more than 24 billion baht ($655 million) in revenue, according to the state tourism agency. Past Thai governments have been reluctant to call for dialing down the fun even during crises such as droughts and the pandemic

Though the festival originated as a way to pray for a rainy season that helped crops and included activities such as cleansing images of the Buddha and washing the hands and feet of elders, Songkran these days is now often associated with public drunkenness, sexual assault in the guise of merrymaking, and a spike in traffic fatalities, noticeable to the point that the extended holiday has been dubbed the “seven dangerous days.”

The festival usually falls at the hottest time of the year when temperatures can creep above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

But this year, the unusual heat wave, with expected record temperatures for the next few months, has triggered apprehension. The United Nations Children’s Fund warned Thursday the sweltering weather could put millions of children's lives at risk, asking caregivers to take extra precautions.

The UNICEF statement said in the Asia-Pacific region, “around 243 million children are exposed to hotter and longer heatwaves, putting them at risk of a multitude of heat-related illnesses, and even death.”

Heat waves can be lethal as they affect the ability to breathe, making the old and young particularly vulnerable.

Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore where natural phenomena such as climate change are studied, said three factors determine heat waves; El Nino, a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific, an increase in global temperatures and human-induced climate change.

The poor are particularly vulnerable to heat waves, exacerbated in many Southeast Asian cities where concrete buildings make the weather more stifling and few trees provide shade, he said.

Horton added that the past year saw record-high global average temperatures and the heat waves in Southeast Asia were mirroring that trend, adding that “it is only going to get worse.”

The entirety of the Mekong Delta, which includes Vietnam as well as Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, saw extreme heat, with parts of Laos and Thailand seeing temperatures that were 5-7 degrees Celsius (41-44.6 degrees Fahrenheit) more than the average between April 3-9, according to the Mekong Dam Monitor program of the Stimson Center in Washington D.C.

This extreme heat also means less water for hydropower dams to produce energy.

“Heat waves put a significant strain on power systems, from surging energy demand to compromising grid capacity. Hydropower generation is particularly impacted” when heat results in drought over multiple years, according to Dimitri Pescia, director for Southeast Asia at the German-based thinktank Agora Energiewende

“The cumulative effects, amplified by climate change, cause great distress to society and ecosystems,” he said.

Singapore's Horton said earth-warming carbon emissions needed a drastic cutting down as people learned to adapt to the new climate which included learning the dangers of overly hot weather and for authorities to create an emergency response to warn people about high temperatures beforehand and provide them with areas to cool down when needed.

Last week, the Philippines suspended classes in more than 5,800 public schools and shifted to home-based and online learning to protect millions of students from the scorching heat.

Schools in several cities, including the congested capital Manila, shifted classes to early morning to avoid sweltering noontime and afternoon temperatures. Also, tens of thousands of students in grade and high schools were allowed to alternate between going to school and online classes every other day, officials said.

Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna-Pangan, a medical doctor, said they have limited outdoor activities especially if the heat index rises to an extreme level. “If people don’t have urgent tasks outside, the best precaution really is to stay indoors.”

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Associated Press writers Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines contributed to this report. Asia Business Climate correspondent Aniruddha Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.

Yem Sam-eng, 43, pours water over his cow for bathing at his home in Run Ta Ek village in Siem Reap province, northwestern Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, April 2, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A motorcyclist drives over the shadow of train tracks in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Women enjoy ice cream in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

People holding umbrellas walk by the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, April 5, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

A woman walks through spay water for cooling down from hot temperatures in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

A visitor with an umbrella walks downstairs of the Golden Mount inside the Buddhist Wat Saket temple complex in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

People holding umbrellas walk in front of Mahakan Fort in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, April 5, 2024. Thailand, Cambodia and other countries in this region are celebrating with their annual water festivals as they also suffer through the global heat wave. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

A man reacts as a bucket of water is splashed on him during the Songkran water festival to celebrate the Thai New Year in Prachinburi Province, Thailand, Saturday April 13, 2024. It's the time of year when many Southeast Asian countries hold nationwide water festivals to beat the seasonal heat, as celebrants splash friends, family and strangers alike in often raucous celebration to mark the traditional Theravada Buddhist New Year. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

A couple react as a bucket of water is splashed on them during the Songkran water festival to celebrate the Thai New Year in Prachinburi Province, Thailand, Saturday April 13, 2024. It's the time of year when many Southeast Asian countries hold nationwide water festivals to beat the seasonal heat, as celebrants splash friends, family and strangers alike in often raucous celebration to mark the traditional Theravada Buddhist New Year. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

A woman reacts as a bucket of water is splashed on her during the Songkran water festival to celebrate the Thai New Year in Prachinburi Province, Thailand, Saturday April 13, 2024. It's the time of year when many Southeast Asian countries hold nationwide water festivals to beat the seasonal heat, as celebrants splash friends, family and strangers alike in often raucous celebration to mark the traditional Theravada Buddhist New Year. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

A man reacts as water is splashed on him during the Songkran water festival to celebrate the Thai New Year in Prachinburi Province, Saturday April 13, 2024. It's the time of year when many Southeast Asian countries hold nationwide water festivals to beat the seasonal heat, as celebrants splash friends, family and strangers alike in often raucous celebration to mark the traditional Theravada Buddhist New Year. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

A man reacts as a bucket of water is splashed on him during the Songkran water festival to celebrate the Thai New Year in Prachinburi Province, Thailand, Saturday April 13, 2024. It's the time of year when many Southeast Asian countries hold nationwide water festivals to beat the seasonal heat, as celebrants splash friends, family and strangers alike in often raucous celebration to mark the traditional Theravada Buddhist New Year. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

BERLIN (AP) — Berlin’s government is offering to give away a villa once owned by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, hoping to end a decades-long debate on whether to repurpose or bulldoze a sprawling disused site in the countryside north of the German capital.

“I offer to anyone who would like to take over the site, to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, told the state parliament on Thursday, dpa reported.

Berlin has repeatedly tried to hand off the site to federal authorities or the state of Brandenburg, where the villa lies, rather than continue to pay for maintenance and security at the complex, which has become overgrown and fallen into disrepair.

Evers renewed that offer on Thursday, calling for proposals that reflected the site’s history. He didn’t say if proposals from private individuals would also be considered.

“If we fail again, as in the past decades, then Berlin has no other option but to carry out the demolition that we have already prepared for,” Evers said.

Goebbels, one of Hitler’s closest allies, had the luxury villa built in 1939 on a wooded site overlooking the Bogensee lake near the town of Wandlitz, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Berlin.

A retreat from Berlin, where he lived with his wife and six children, Goebbels used the villa and an earlier house on the site to entertain Nazi leaders, artists and actors — and reputedly as a love-nest for secret affairs.

After the war, the 17-hectare (42-acre) site was used briefly as a hospital, then taken over by the youth wing of the East German communist party, which constructed a training center, including several large accommodation blocks.

After German reunification in 1990, ownership of the site returned to the state of Berlin. However, the city found no use for it. The site has since become an attraction for day-trippers who can pick their way through the overgrown grounds and peer through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the villa.

Goebbels moved back to Berlin in the final phase of the Second World War. He and his wife killed themselves and their children with cyanide capsules in Hitler’s bunker as Soviet troops closed in.

The family’s opulent home on an island in Berlin was sold at auction in 2011.

The former villa of Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels is seen on the Bogensee site, near the town of Wandlitz, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Berlin, on March 22, 2024. Berlin’s government is offering to give away the villa, hoping to end a decades-long debate on whether to repurpose or bulldoze a sprawling disused site in the countryside north of the German capital. “I offer to anyone who would like to take over the site, to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, told the state parliament on Thursday May 2, 2024, dpa reported. (Patrick Pleul/dpa via AP)

The former villa of Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels is seen on the Bogensee site, near the town of Wandlitz, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Berlin, on March 22, 2024. Berlin’s government is offering to give away the villa, hoping to end a decades-long debate on whether to repurpose or bulldoze a sprawling disused site in the countryside north of the German capital. “I offer to anyone who would like to take over the site, to take it over as a gift from the state of Berlin,” Berlin’s finance minister, Stefan Evers, told the state parliament on Thursday May 2, 2024, dpa reported. (Patrick Pleul/dpa via AP)