Death toll climbs as Japan suffers heat wave
People cool down under a cooling mist spot in Tokyo. Record temperatures part of a weather front described as a ‘disaster’
TOKYO— Extremely high temperatures have hospitalized 23,000 people just in the past week, nearly double the previous record. Some outdoor pools are too hot for swimming. Construction workers wear battery-powered fans to avoid heatstroke, which has killed 86 people since May.
Even for the stoic Japanese, known for tolerating all manner of discomfort, the summer of 2018 has pushed their limits.
The temperature reached a record of 41 C at a city outside Tokyo, part of a heat wave described by an official from the Japan Meteorological Agency as “unprecedented” and a “disaster,” and forecast to continue for at least two more weeks.
About half the people taken to the hospital this week are older than 65. In Japan — which has a word, gaman, that denotes a sense of bearing with it — the elderly are perhaps more susceptible than anyone to feeling they should simply put up with the heat. They grew up without air-conditioning, and now that they live on pensions, many are also cost-conscious.
“They think energy conservation is a good thing, especially after the 3-11 disaster,” said Kazuyo Oyamada, chief consultant at Mizuho Information & Research Institute. She was referring to the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 2011, which led to a shutdown of the nuclear plants that had provided almost a third of Japan’s electricity.
Nevertheless, sales of air-conditioners at Bic Camera, one of the largest electronics chains, jumped close to 70 per cent last week compared to the same period a year ago, and not all of those sales can be to the younger generation.
Tokuhiro Shimomura, 76, a retired factory worker who was headed to a hospital in Tokyo on Wednesday for a routine appointment, said he kept the air conditioning on at home, though he worried about the expense.
At an elementary school in Sumoto, a city in western Japan, officials closed the pool because the water temperature had reached 35 C. “This never happened before in my life as a teacher,” said Harufumi Ishibashi, 47, a vice principal.
Because of the heat, the 2,000 or so construction workers at the site of the new National Stadium — the central venue for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo — are getting an extra half-hour for their lunch breaks, and free bottles of water, sports drinks and shaved ice.
Koichi Kuromaru, 56, who finished his shift around noon on Wednesday, looked more like he was dressed to hit the ski slopes than to battle the heat. But he opened his jacket to reveal a battery-powered fan stitched into a side pocket, which keeps his upper body cool. Many workers have them.
For office workers required to wear suits, the extreme heat is something they must simply endure.
“Sometimes clients urge me to take off my necktie,” said Hiroyuki Shigemori, 54, a pharmaceuticals salesman walking into Shimbashi station in Tokyo, his black suit jacket folded over his arm. “I am grateful for that.” (His tie was still on.)
Walking down a Tokyo street on a clear summer day, you often see a sea of parasols, carried (mostly by women) to block out the sun.
In the prefecture of Saitama, where the heat record was set this week, local officials have launched a social media campaign to encourage men to carry parasols. “It’s an effective tool for heat and heatstroke,” reads the campaign’s official Twitter account.