On Me Tri Ha Street in Me Tri Ward, Ngoc Ha, 35, used a rechargeable fan to cool her two-year-old daughter after their area lost power three or four times on the night of May 25, with each outage lasting around half an hour.

After a day of intense heat, the walls of their house continued radiating warmth. Ha and her husband considered going to a hotel, but decided against it because it was already late.

Realizing the electricity came back every 30 to 45 minutes, they left the air conditioner and fans switched on so the room would cool quickly whenever power returned. When another blackout hit the next evening, Ha took her child to a relative’s apartment eight kilometers away.

“Young children simply can’t cope with this kind of heat,” she said. “Leaving was the best choice.”

Between May 25 and 26, outages and unstable power supply were reported in several Hanoi wards, including Thanh Xuan, Cau Giay, Long Bien, Hoang Mai and Tu Liem, as well as suburban districts.

Many people said on social media that they had gone to shopping malls to escape the heat or sent their children to apartment buildings with backup generators.

Northern and central Vietnam are enduring their second heatwave this month, which began on May 23. Temperatures in the northern delta, Phu Tho Province and the stretch from Thanh Hoa to Thua Thien Hue averaged 38-40 degrees Celsius, with many areas exceeding 40 degrees.

An official from Ba Dinh Power Company said the outages were mainly caused by a surge in electricity demand as households relied heavily on cooling devices.

Some transmission lines and substations operating under extreme heat also suffered technical problems and localized overloads, the official said.

An electricity worker fixes power lines on Trieu Khuc Street in Hanoi’s Thanh Xuan Ward following outage reports late on May 25, 2026. Photo by Pham Van Hai

Data from the National Power System and Market Operator Company Limited showed record electricity demand in northern Vietnam on May 25 and 26.

In Hanoi, demand reached a new peak of 6,203 MW at 9:30 p.m. on May 25, 3.5% higher than the previous record set in 2025. Average electricity use has also risen 2.4% from last year’s peak.

At 10 p.m. on May 26, Nhat Mai, a resident of Minh Khai Street in Hai Ba Trung Ward, walked to the end of her alley with dozens of neighbors to “catch a bit of breeze” after another blackout.

“Booking a homestay or hotel now would be expensive, and if the power comes back soon, it would feel like a waste,” she said. “We’ll just wait it out.”

But many of her neighbors could not stand the heat and headed to parks, Hoan Kiem Lake or air-conditioned convenience stores to spend the night.