Deadly Asian floods are no fluke. They’re a climate warning, scientists say

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Southeast Asia is being pummeled by unusually severe floods this year, as late-arriving storms and relentless rains wreak havoc that has caught many places off guard.

Deaths have topped 1,400 across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, with more than 1,000 still missing in floods and landslides. In Indonesia, entire villages remain cut off after bridges and roads were swept away. Thousands in Sri Lanka lack clean water, while Thailand’s prime minister acknowledged shortcomings in his government's response.

Malaysia is still reeling from one its worst floods, which killed three and displaced thousands. Meanwhile, Vietnam and the Philippines have faced a year of punishing storms and floods that have left hundreds dead.

What feels unprecedented is exactly what climate scientists expect: A new normal of punishing storms, floods and devastation.

“Southeast Asia should brace for a likely continuation and potential worsening of extreme weather in 2026 and for many years immediately following that," said Jemilah Mahmood, who leads the think tank Sunway Centre for Planetary Health in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Climate patterns last year helped set the stage for 2025's extreme weather.

Atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the most on record in 2024. That “turbocharged” the climate, the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization says, resulting in more extreme weather.

Asia is bearing the brunt of such changes, warming nearly twice as fast as the global average. Scientists agree that the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are increasing.

Warmer ocean temperatures provide more energy for storms, making them stronger and wetter, while rising sea levels amplify storm surges, said Benjamin Horton, a professor of earth science at the City University of Hong Kong.

Storms are arriving later in the year, one after another as climate change affects air and ocean currents, including systems like El Nino, which keeps ocean waters warmer for longer and extends the typhoon season. With more moisture in the air and changes in wind patterns, storms can form quickly.

“While the total number of storms may not dramatically increase, their severity and unpredictability will," Horton said.

The unpredictability, intensity, and frequency of recent extreme weather events are overwhelming Southeast Asian governments, said Aslam Perwaiz of the Bangkok-based intergovernmental Asian Disaster Preparedness Center. He attributes that to a tendency to focus on responding to disasters rather than preparing for them.

“Future disasters will give us even less lead time to prepare," Perwaiz warned.

In Sri Lanka’s hardest-hit provinces, little has changed since 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, said Sarala Emmanuel, a human-rights researcher in Batticaloa. It killed 230,000 people.

"When a disaster like this happens, the poor and marginalized communities are the worst affected,” Emmanuel said. That includes poor tea plantation workers living in areas prone to landslides.

Unregulated development that damages local ecosystems has worsened flood damage, said Sandun Thudugala of the Colombo-based non-profit Law and Society Trust. Sri Lanka needs to rethink how it builds and plans, he said, taking into account a future where extreme weather is the norm.

Videos of logs swept downstream in Indonesia suggested deforestation may have made the floods worse. Since 2000, the flood-inundated Indonesian provinces of Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra have lost 19,600 square kilometers (7,569 square miles) of forest, an area larger than the state of New Jersey, according to Global Forest Watch.

Officials rejected claims of illegal logging, saying the timber looked old and probably came from landholders.

Countries are losing billions of dollars a year because of climate change.

Vietnam estimates that it lost over $3 billion in the first 11 months of this year because of floods, landslides and storms.

Thailand's government data is fragmented, but its agriculture ministry estimates about $47 million in agricultural losses since August. The Kasikorn Research Center estimates the November floods in southern Thailand alone caused about $781 million in losses, potentially shaving off 0.1% of GDP.

Indonesia doesn't have data for losses for this year but its annual average losses from natural disasters are $1.37 billion, its finance ministry says.

Costs from disasters are an added burden for Sri Lanka, which contributes a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions but is at the frontline of climate impacts, while it spends most of its wealth to repay foreign loans, said Thudugala.

"There is also an urgent need for vulnerable countries like ours to get compensated for loss and damages we suffer because of global warming,” Thudugala said.

“My request ... is support to recover some of the losses we have suffered,” said Rohan Wickramarachchi, owner of a commercial building in the central Sri Lankan town of Peradeniya that was flooded to its second floor. He and dozens of other families he knows must now start over.

Responding to increasingly desperate calls for help, at the COP30 global climate conference last month in Brazil, countries pledged to triple funding for climate adaptation and make $1.3 trillion in annual climate financing available by 2035. That’s still woefully short of what developing nations requested, and it's unclear if those funds will actually materialize.

Southeast Asia is at a crossroads for climate action, said Thomas Houlie of the science and policy institute, Climate Analytics. The region is expanding use of renewable energy but still reliant on fossil fuels.

“What we’re seeing in the region is dramatic and it’s unfortunately a stark reminder of the consequences of the climate crisis," Houlie said.

Delgado reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Thailand, Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, Eranga Jayawardena in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - People wade through floodwaters in Songkhla province, southern Thailand, on Nov. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Sarot Meksophawannakul, File)

FILE - People watch rough waves caused by Typhoon Kalmaegi in Khanh Hoa, Vietnam, on Nov. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh, File)

FILE - Men swim despite strong waves due to Typhoon Fung-wong along a coastal village on Nov. 10, 2025, in Navotas, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

FILE - Cars and houses are submerged in floodwaters in Songkhla province, southern Thailand, on Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Arnun Chonmahatrakool, File)

FILE - This aerial photo taken using drone shows a village affected by a flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, on Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara, File)

A man cleans his house at a village affected by flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

Peoples move a car damaged from floods in Songkhla province, southern Thailand, Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Sarot Meksophawannakul)

A man cleans the mud and slush from his shop after floods in Gelioya, Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

This drone shot shows the devastation at a village affected by a flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

Men sit near a bridge collapsed during a flash flood in Pidie Jaya, Aceh province, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)

BANGKOK (AP) — Vote counting was underway in Thailand's early general election on Sunday, seen as a three-way race among competing visions of progressive, populist and old-fashioned patronage politics.

The battle for support from 53 million registered voters comes against a backdrop of slow economic growth and heightened nationalist sentiment. While more than 50 parties are contesting the polls, only three — the People’s Party, Bhumjaithai, and Pheu Thai — have the nationwide organization and popularity to gain a winning mandate.

A simple majority of the 500 elected lawmakers selects the next prime minister.

Local polls consistently project that no single party will gain a majority, necessitating the formation of a coalition government.

Although the progressive People’s Party is seen as favored to win a plurality, its reformist politics aren't shared by its leading rivals, which may freeze it out by joining forces to form a government.

The People’s Party, led by Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, is the successor to the Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in the House of Representatives in 2023, but was blocked from forming a government by conservative lawmakers and then forced to dissolve.

"I think we will get the mandate from the people, and we promised the people that we will form the people’s government to bring policies that benefit all, not a few in the country,” Natthaphong told reporters after casting his ballot in Bangkok.

His party's platform continues to promise sweeping reforms of the military, police and judiciary, appealing to youth and urban voters. Legal constraints have led it to set aside demands for reform of a law that metes out harsh penalties for criticism of the monarchy, while putting new emphasis on economic issues.

Softening its politics risks weakening its core support, already at risk because the last election had positioned it squarely as the alternative to nine previous years of military-led government, a situation it can't fruitfully exploit this time.

At the same time, its positions critical of the military can be a political liability with the surge of patriotism that emerged during last year’s border clashes with Cambodia, said Napon Jatusripitak, director of the Center for Politics and Geopolitics at Thailand Future, a Bangkok-based think tank.

The Bhumjaithai Party, headed by incumbent Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, is seen as the main defender and preferred choice of the royalist-military establishment.

Anutin has been prime minister only since last September, after serving in the Cabinet of his immediate predecessor, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was forced out of office for an ethics violation regarding mishandling relations with Cambodia. He dissolved parliament in December to call a new election after he was threatened with a no-confidence vote.

Subsequent border clashes with Cambodia allowed Anutin to recast himself as a wartime leader after his popularity initially slipped because of floods and financial scandals. His campaign focuses on national security and economic stimulus.

“We have done everything that we had to, but we cannot force the mind of the people. We can only present ourselves, and hope that the people will have faith in us,” Anutin said after casting ballots in northeastern Buriram province, his party's stronghold.

Bhumjaithai, seen as the likeliest party to form the next government, benefits from an electoral strategy employing old-style patronage politics and a machine skilled at grassroots organizing in the vote-rich northeast.

The Pheu Thai Party is the latest political vehicle for billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin-backed parties staged repeated electoral comebacks, only to be ousted by conservative-leaning courts and state watchdog agencies.

It softened its politics enough by the 2023 election to be returned to power after being judged by the previously hostile royalist-military establishment as an acceptable alternative to the more progressive Move Forward party.

The conservative court system rounded on it anyway — ousting two of its prime ministers over two years and ordering Thaksin imprisoned on old charges. The party now campaigns on economic revival and populist pledges like cash handouts, nominating Thaksin’s nephew, Yodchanan Wongsawat, as its lead candidate for prime minister.

"I’m excited, because I think today will be another busy day for the country’s democracy,” Yodchanan told reporters after voting.

Sunday’s voting includes a referendum asking voters whether Thailand should replace its 2017 military-drafted constitution.

The vote isn't on a proposed draft, but rather to decide whether to authorize parliament to begin a formal drafting process, which would require many further steps before coming to fruition.

Pro-democracy groups view a new charter as a critical step toward reducing the influence of unelected institutions such as the military and judiciary, while conservatives warn that it could cause instability.

CORRECTS DATE TO 8, NOT 7 - Police officers and volunteers seal a ballot box at voting station before starting of Thailand's general election in Bangkok, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

CORRECTS DATE TO 8, NOT 7 - Police officers prepare for the general election at a voting station in Bangkok, on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

CORRECTS DATE TO 8, NOT 7 - Police officers and election volunteers prepare for the general election at a voting station in Bangkok, on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

CORRECTS DATE TO 8, NOT 7 - A voter casts his ballot at a polling station during general election in Bangkok, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

CORRECTS DATE TO 8, NOT 7 - Voters look at candidates listed on a display board before entering a voting station for the general election in Bangkok, on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

Police officers and volunteers prepare at a voting station for the general election in Bangkok, Sunday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)

Volunteers check equipment and prepare ballot boxes for Sunday's general election in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

A volunteer checks ballots for Sunday's general election in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Police officers and Volunteers check ballots for Sunday's general election in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)