Rainy days halve heatstroke sufferers last week

August 22, 2017

TOKYO- A spell of rainy days halved the number of heatstroke sufferers in Japan last week, according to data released by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency on Tuesday.

Due to heatstroke, 2,696 people were taken by ambulance to hospitals across the country in the week through Sunday, down from 5,362 such people a year earlier and 4,298 in the preceding week.

Of the 47 prefectures, only Okinawa, southernmost Japan, saw a year-on-year rise in the number of heatstroke sufferers who were taken to hospitals in the reporting week.

The number of people taken to hospital by ambulance for heatstroke in Japan stood at 26,702 in July, up 43 percent from a year earlier and the highest on record for the month, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said Monday.

Of the total, 31 people died and 607 were in serious condition. Those aged 65 or over accounted for 49.9 percent of the total.

The high atmospheric pressure caused the average monthly temperature to be much higher than normal in northern and western regions, the agency said.

The number of heatstroke sufferers rose 4.3-fold in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido and more than doubled in the northeastern prefectures of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata and Fukushima, it pointed out. Jiji Press