TOKYO, July 23, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Japanese officials issued new warnings
Monday as a deadly heatwave blankets the country, producing record high
temperatures in Tokyo just two years before the city hosts the 2020 Summer
Olympics.
Officials said last week that the heatwave had killed at least 15 people
and forced the hospitalisation of over 12,000 others in the first two weeks
of July.
But the death toll may be more than double that, with Kyodo News agency
reporting 11 people died on Saturday alone across Japan.
An updated official toll is expected later this week.
The heatwave has toppled temperature records across the country, with
Kumagaya in Saitama outside Tokyo setting a new nationwide record on Monday
with temperatures hitting 41.1 Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit).
And in western Tokyo’s Ome, temperatures hit 40.3 degrees Celsius, the
first time temperatures over 40 have been recorded in Tokyo’s metro area.
Records fell at 13 other observation stations across the country, with
more than a dozen cities and towns seeing temperatures around 40, the Japan
Meteorological Agency said.
“People in areas where temperatures are as high as 35 degrees or higher
should be extremely careful” to avoid heatstroke, meteorological agency
official Minako Sakurai told AFP.
“And at even lower temperatures, the heat can be dangerous for small
children and elderly people, and depending on the environment and activities
you are doing,” she warned.
“People should be all the more careful as many people must be exhausted
after days of cruelly hot weather,” she added.
Japan’s disaster management agency has urged people to use
airconditioning, drink sufficient water and rest often while at work.
The heatwave follows record rainfall that devastated parts of western and
central Japan with floods and landslides that killed over 220 people.
Japan’s summers are notoriously hot and humid, and hundreds of people die
each year from heatstroke, particularly the elderly in the country’s ageing
society.
But this year’s record temperatures have surprised residents and officials
alike, and revived concerns about the 2020 Summer Olympics, which will be
held in July and August in Tokyo.
Olympic officials and Tokyo’s local government are touting measures from
solar-blocking paint on roads to mobile misting stations to tackle the heat.