Heat wave kills two in Japan, sends hundreds to hospitals

Japan Times: At least two people died and hundreds were taken to hospitals over the weekend as a heat wave swept over Japan, officials and reports said Sunday. A 74-year-old woman collapsed while working in a greenhouse in Chiba Prefecture on Saturday and was later pronounced dead, while in adjacent Ibaraki, a 61-year-old woman was found collapsed in her garden and died.

On Sunday, a 76-year-old man was taken unconscious to a hospital in Sera, Hiroshima Prefecture, after collapsing near a river bank. “He is suspected of having a heatstroke,” a local ambulance worker said by telephone. The official said there were unconfirmed reports that the man had been working in the rice paddies before collapsing.

More than 190 people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses on Sunday as the sweltering weather continued to grip the archipelago, according to a Kyodo News tally based on firefighters’ figures.

Temperatures topped 30 at 400 locations, with a high of 36.3 recorded in Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, and in the town of Ibigawa in Gifu, the Meteorological Agency said. Twenty-five locations across the country including Kyoto saw temperatures soar over 35, the agency said....

Tokyo summer scene on the river, shot by Yamaguchi Yoshiaki, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license