Since Saturday, temperatures have reached 40°C in some cities. In the Japanese archipelago, the number of deaths due to heat exhaustion has increased sharply in 20 years.
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A rare heatwave in the middle of the rainy season. Six people died of sunstroke in Tokyo, Japan, three on Saturday and three more on Monday, July 8, when the mercury reached around 35 C at midday, according to the city’s medical examination bureau. Over the weekend, Shizuoka Prefecture became the first prefecture in Japan to see the mercury reach 40 C this year, far exceeding the 35 C threshold for a day. “extremely hot” by the meteorological authorities.
Such intense heat during this season is premature and “rather rare”, caused in part by a strong high pressure system in the South Pacific, a Japan Meteorological Agency official told AFP on Tuesday. Temperatures also reached highs of around 40°C on Monday in Tokyo and Wakayama, according to local media.
In recent days, authorities have issued warnings across much of the country, urging residents to avoid exercising outdoors and to use air conditioning indoors. Heatstroke is particularly deadly in Japan, which has the world’s oldest population after Monaco.
On Monday, the Japan Medical Association warned that the number of deaths from heat exhaustion is rising from a few hundred a year 20 years ago to about 1,500 in 2022. The death toll suggests the danger of heatstroke is now equivalent to that of a “major natural disaster”, a declared the association.
