As missiles continue to fall in the Middle East, their shock wave has suffocated 600 million people in Southeast Asia due to a lethal crisis: lack of fuel.
The problem, as collected The New York Timesis an abysmal reserve gap. While rich neighbors like Japan or South Korea have accumulated crude oil for more than 200 days, countries like Vietnam or Indonesia survive with just enough for just three weeks. Thailand, for its part, resists with a margin of only two months. With this time bomb on the table, logistical collapse was not a possibility; It was just a matter of time.
The butterfly effect. In the midst of this energy shock, the most unusual and heartbreaking impact is being experienced in the temples of Thailand. An investigative report from South China Morning Post (SCMP) alert that diesel shortage is threatening sacred funeral ceremonies in this majority Buddhist country. In local tradition, cremation, which follows several nights of singing, requires ovens connected to tall chimneys. The smoke they release is a ritual that, according to their beliefs, helps guide spirits to heaven.
Today, those furnaces are going out. At Wat Saman Rattanaram, a famous temple about 80 kilometers east of Bangkok, abbot Phra Ratchwachiraprachanart confessed to the Asian newspaper that the suspension of cremations is imminent. “In more than 50 years, I have never seen anything like it,” he lamented. The temple only has about 200 liters of diesel left, the equivalent of two cremations, which is its weekly average. The problem is worsened by the rationing imposed on the streets. Another temple in the northeast of the country has already had to suspend their funeral services because local gas stations refused to allow them to fill plastic drums with fuel.
The collapse of economic arteries. While the temples suffer, panic takes over the streets. Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul declared to the agency Xinhua that the country does not face a real shortage of imports, but rather a crisis of public anxiety. The fear of shortages has caused panic buying, shooting up daily fuel consumption from the usual 60-67 million liters to an exorbitant 84 million.
The consequences of this panic are palpable. A survey by the Thai Ministry of Energy cited by him SCMP revealed that, of 1,500 gas stations inspected, 10% had closed due to lack of supply and almost 70% reported critical levels.
A logistical bottleneck. This whole situation is being reflected in the markets, where sellers cannot get fresh fruits because truckers refuse to make long trips, like the route from Pathum Thani to Chiang Maifor fear of being stranded on the road with an empty tank.
And the suffocation extends beyond Thai borders. The figures of The New York Times reflect that in Laos, more than 40% of gas stations have had to close; in Cambodia, almost a third. In Thailand, fishermen like Wittaya Lekdee have their shrimp boat moored in port because the price of naval fuel has skyrocketed by 75%. In the Philippines, the situation is identical: fishermen who previously owned their boats are now looking for work in other cities to pay the rent, unable to meet the costs of diesel.
Desperate measures. Governments operate in emergency mode, taking drastic decisions to try to stop the bleeding. According to ReutersThailand is trying to keep a diesel price cap at 33 baht ($1.02) per liter, but its Oil Fund is already running up a deficit of more than 12 billion baht. In a geopolitical shift brought about by necessity, the country is negotiating the purchase of crude oil from Russia, while receiving emergency shipments from Angola and the United States.
Energy saving has become a state policy. How the coverage details Guardian, In Thailand, officials have been ordered to stop wearing ties and wear short-sleeved shirts so they can raise the air conditioning to 26-27°C, in addition to suspending trips abroad. Indonesia is accelerating a program to blend conventional diesel with 50% palm oil-based biodiesel. For its part, the Philippine government has implemented four-day work weeks for many civil servants and is providing cash subsidies of 5,000 pesos to bus drivers. jeepneys (local public transport). However, drivers like Elmer Carrascal They explain to the British media that this money only lasts a few days, while their daily income has fallen from 1,000 to 400 pesos, an amount insufficient even to buy rice.
The invisible collateral damage. The shock wave of high oil prices has touched unexpected sectors. The Straits Times warns of an imminent crisis in the Thai health system: ambulances in 39 provinces are suffering from lack of fuel. With 14,213 emergency vehicles requiring around 71,065 liters per day, the National Institute of Emergency Medicine (NIEM) has had to turn to Facebook to beg gas stations to reserve between 50 and 100 liters exclusively to save lives. In provinces like Kalasin, municipal ambulances can no longer operate.
The agricultural and industrial sector is also dying. The report of The New York Times exposes how In Vietnam the cost of fertilizers for coffee cooperatives has risen almost 30% in two weeks. In Thailand, pet food packaging manufacturers are facing a 40% increase in the cost of plastic pellets. In Myanmar, under a military regime that has imposed alternate-day driving, citizens like Tin Hlaing Moe have been fined 30,000 kyat ($7.50) simply for using their car on a prohibited day to take their heart attack mother to the hospital.
Sometimes, the shortage leaves images that border on the surreal: in the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya, a camp has informed the British newspaper that its elephants now have to walk five kilometers a day to go to work, since there is no diesel for the trucks that used to transport them.
The final price of a foreign war. The Strait of Hormuz is more than 5,000 kilometers from Bangkok, Manila or Hanoi. However, the blockage of its waters has demonstrated the extreme fragility of the globalized world. What is discussed in international offices as a geopolitical and energy market crisis, in Southeast Asia translates into dry fishing nets, parked ambulances and ruined farmers.
But perhaps no image better sums up the depth of this disaster than that of Thai temples; an entire region realizing its vulnerability, where a distant war has not only paralyzed the world of the living, but threatens to put out the fire that, for centuries, has guided its dead.
Image | Tevaprapas
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