Japan Feeling the Heat
Japan facing its hottest summer with Kyoto recording 39.9ºC (103.8ºF) today, and 128 other cities higher than 35ºC.
Japan’s hottest summer since records began in 1898 has claimed about 700 lives [150 deaths confirmed by govt in mid August due to heatstroke and another 496 dying from heat-related complications,] with 50,000 others hospitalized from heatstroke.
The country’s average temperature between June and August was 1.64ºC (2.95ºF) higher than the 30-year average calculated between 1971 and 2000.
Since early August, many parts of the country has experienced temperatures above 35ºC, Japan’s Meteorological Agency earlier reported.
“It can be said that weather was abnormal in this summer,” an agency official said.
Their earlier forecast for the temperature to exceed 35ºC in many parts of the country has proven right.
The intense heatwave has also killed up to 1,200 cows, about 660 pigs and as many as half a million chicken, according to a report.
“The latest survey does not cover Miyazaki Prefecture, which was hit by foot-and-mouth disease among its livestock and was forced to slaughter around 289,000 cows and pigs. The prefecture announced the end of the outbreak last week.”
NOTE: The hottest ever temperature recorded in Japan was 40.9ºC in Kumagaya city, Saitama prefecture (state) in August 16, 2007.
List of countries with record temperatures in summer 2010 (A-Z)
- Ascension Island
- Belarus
- Burma
- Chad
- Colombia
- Cyprus
- Finland
- Iraq
- Kuwait
- Niger
- Pakistan
- Portugal
- Qatar
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Solomon Islands
- Sudan
- Ukraine
- United States
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