On a stretch of fine sand, facing south reveals the slow-moving Mekong River. Turn left at dawn or right at dusk, and the same sun slowly rises above — and later slips behind — the mountains and water. This is Ban Tamui, a small community in Khong Chiam district of Ubon Ratchathani province.
It is home to six-year-old Payuda “Maya” Panyasu, a lively girl who opens up easily around people she trusts. Maya is about to begin Grade 2. After her parents separated several years ago, she came to live with her 82-year-old grandfather and other family members in a modest single-storey concrete house shared by five people.
“Grandpa sleeps on the bed. I sleep on the floor beside his bed,” says the sharp-eyed, tan-skinned girl, describing the sleeping arrangement inside the solid-walled home that neighbours helped expand and repair over the years.
As heatwaves swept across Thailand this past summer, temperatures remained dangerously high for weeks, with the Thai Meteorological Department warning that conditions were likely to worsen. Inside poorly ventilated homes, the heat lingered long after sunset. Beads of sweat formed across Maya’s face as she sat beneath the faint relief of a single electric fan.
Maya is among the many vulnerable children already living through the impacts of climate change. A 2023 study by the Thailand Development Research Institute and UNICEF found that millions of Thai children are increasingly exposed to extreme weather events, including severe heat, floods, and droughts. Provinces such as Ubon Ratchathani are among the hardest hit.
More frequent and intense heatwaves are affecting children’s health in multiple ways, increasing the risk of heat exhaustion, heatstroke, chronic respiratory illness, and asthma. Extreme heat also undermines concentration and directly affects children’s ability to learn and develop.
Although Ban Tamui sits along the banks of the Mekong River, the area’s shallow soil and rocky terrain absorb heat throughout the day before slowly releasing it at night. Over time, residents have grown accustomed to the oppressive warmth almost without realizing it. But as heatwaves grow longer and more intense, such conditions are becoming a “new normal” – one defined by mounting exhaustion and daily discomfort.
Forest rangers stationed near the community say the daytime heat has become so unbearable that they have shifted much of their cleaning and maintenance work to nighttime hours to cope.
By late afternoon, children in Ban Tamui often gather in small groups after getting permission from their parents. Under the watchful eyes of adults in the community, they run barefoot along the sandbanks, playing in the dirt and splashing in the Mekong River to escape the heat. In this riverside village, children learn to swim from an early age – a skill taught not only for play, but so they can protect themselves and help one another in the water.
But these moments of relief also carry risks. Thailand’s Department of Disease Control has warned that the summer break remains one of the deadliest periods for child drowning. Between 2021 and 2025, at least 925 children under the age of 15 drowned, while more than 7,400 others were injured in water-related incidents. As heatwaves become more frequent and intense, those dangers may only grow as more children turn to rivers and open water to escape the heat.
Even in the sweltering afternoon heat, Maya and her grandfather walk together along dried-up irrigation channels before climbing a steep embankment toward the family’s mixed-crop farm.
“We’re here,” she says.
In front of them stretches dry, withered vegetation. Only a few pineapple plants remain alive, bearing tiny reddish fruits no larger than a fist.
“There’s barely enough left to share,” her grandfather says in the local Isaan dialect, reflecting on how little the farm has produced this year.
The scene reflects findings highlighted in a March 2025 report by the United Nations Development Programme titled Climate Chaos, Drought, and Unpredictable Seasons: Impacts on Agriculture. The report outlines the immense economic losses facing Thailand’s agricultural sector as climate change intensifies, estimating cumulative damages between 2011/2012 and 2041–2050 could range from US$18 billion to US$84 billion — or roughly 577 billion to 2.69 trillion baht.
But drought is only part of the problem. Owners of longan and tamarind orchards in the area describe how rising temperatures are disrupting crop cycles. “When the trees start blooming, the flowers fall. When the fruits begin to form, they grow small and stunted, followed by plant diseases and insect infestations,” one farmer explains.
Lower yields directly reduce household incomes, and the consequences eventually ripple outward — affecting food security, living conditions, and children’s educational opportunities.
A 2022 UNICEF report found that around 10 million children in Thailand are already exposed to increasingly severe heat. Without serious action, every child in the country could face longer and more frequent heatwaves by 2050, threatening not only their health but also their education and long-term quality of life.
The warning signs are no longer confined to research papers or statistics. Across the region, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and unpredictable. Summer storms in Chaiyaphum province recently flattened sugarcane fields, while large hailstorms battered Vientiane in neighbouring Laos. Together, these events underscore how fragile and volatile the climate has become.
Across many communities, the same story is beginning to unfold: the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat, but something steadily seeping into everyday life — persistent, relentless, and increasingly severe — especially for children, who remain among the most vulnerable.
As extreme heat becomes part of daily life and risks to health, livelihoods, and the future become woven into childhood itself, the question is no longer whether action is needed, but how quickly it can happen before the damage leaves scars too deep to undo.
