13 dead as Japan endures hottest ever day

TOKYO: The temperature hit an all-time high in Japan on Thursday with the extreme summer heat bending train rails and killing at least 13 people this week, officials said.

The mercury shot up to a record 40.9 degrees Celsius (106 degrees Fahrenheit) Thursday afternoon in central Gifu prefecture and Saitama prefecture near Tokyo, the weather agency said.

The reading eclipsed the previous highest temperature recorded in Japan of 40.8 degrees set in northern Yamagata prefecture in 1933.

"It's so hot I'm getting irritated," Kumiko Otani, 72, said as she strolled the glitzy Ginza shopping district of Tokyo, where the temperature rose to 37.0 degrees (99 Fahrenheit).

"I've been in department stores and shops where the air-conditioning is on. Staying inside my house and using air-conditioning is a waste so I've been out all day moving from one place to another in search of cool air," she said, wiping sweat off her brow.

The hot weather was also taking a toll on the young.

Taro Takeyama, 27, said he made sure to take along sunscreen and a moisturising spray for his arms when he went out.

"Such intense heat makes my brain go blank, so I'm forcing myself to drink fluids constantly," he said.

The heat wave comes amid growing concern about global warming. A UN report in April warned that climate change threatened nearly a third of the world's species with extinction.

Meteorologists said the heat wave was due to high air pressure caused by hot temperatures on the surface of the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

On Wednesday, a commuter train running north of Tokyo had to stop for three hours as heat bent the rails, which had to be cooled down with water.

"The rails are made of steel and naturally heat can bloat them. But it is unprecedented to have this kind of trouble," a spokesman for Tobu Railway said.

Hundreds of people have also been sent to hospitals due to heat-related illnesses. Thirteen people have been confirmed dead.

"Many of the victims are elderly people. They are hard hit by this heat wave as they are not so physically strong to begin with," said Toshihiko Yamasaki, a disaster prevention official in Saitama prefecture, where five deaths have been reported.

Another five people have died in Gunma prefecture, also north of Tokyo, since Wednesday, officials said.

A 93-year-old man died in northern Akita prefecture Monday and a 13-year-old boy died Thursday, two days after he collapsed finishing basketball practice at a school gymnasium in Tokyo.

Also in Tokyo, an 87-year-old woman died on Sunday after being found unconscious in her room. 

The heat wave comes amid a shutdown of the world's largest nuclear power plant, situated northwest of Tokyo, due to an earthquake last month.

But a spokesman for the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said there have been no power shortages.