The Guardian reports:
An "unprecedented" heatwave in Japan has killed at least 65 people in one week, government officials have said, with the weather agency classifying the record-breaking weather as a natural disaster.
The deaths in the week to Sunday were due to heatstroke, while another 22,647 people were admitted to hospital, the Japanese fire and disaster management agency said.
[...] The agency said on Tuesday that 80 people had died from the heat since the beginning of the month, and more than 35,000 had been admitted to hospital.
[...] The city of Kumagaya set a national heat record on Monday, with temperatures hitting 41.1C (106F).
[...] The high temperatures follow record rainfall that caused floods and landslides in western and central Japan, killing more than 220 people.
[...] The extreme weather has revived concerns about the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, which will be held in July and August.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:30PM (5 children)
I might follow their lead and commit sudoku.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:30PM (4 children)
It isnt a great joke but modding troll? Cmon people lighten up. Wasnt my joke fyi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:21PM
Disregard that, I suck cocks.
(Score: 4, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:51PM (2 children)
Ho is what you kids say when you mean whore. Kanye taught me that one. Believe me, sudoku is the last thing on my mind when I see a pretty whore! And I guess that's the joke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:22PM (1 child)
Informative?? WTF is going on here? Is this nut mod-bombing his on posts?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Friday July 27 2018, @08:00AM
No. Trolls like me are modding it Informative because it's funnier than a legitimate mod.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:30PM (3 children)
So......is it precedented or not?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:48PM (1 child)
You'd have a hard time beating the 6,000 degree Celsius precedents set in 1945.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:08PM
Well I'm not wasting a point but I'll admit that I did chuckle at that one.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:42PM
They used quotation marks. And I think it's because they're quoting the officials. Not because "unpresidented" is the wrong word.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:42PM (3 children)
... the heatwave in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:26PM (1 child)
Too Soon.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:33PM
I bet you're the life of any party, you humorless turd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:38PM
No, that was a test for global warming.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:06PM (2 children)
> The extreme weather has revived concerns about the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, which will be held in July and August.
Quick, cancel the L.A. 2028 Olympics, and make sure nobody ever considers hosting Olympics in Athens, L.A., Sydney, Atlanta, Barcelona, Mexico City, or Rome, because it occasionally gets hot there in summer !!!
Morons!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
Story on the front, or main page -- page 1 -- they just had some fires near Athens. Many people killed (RIP!!!). And according to one of the articles, fires are common in the summer there. And many folks died in 2007. Because of fires. We have a saying, where there's fire there's smoke. Lots of smoke, it's not great for our athletes. Or really, for anyone. L.A., same thing. Lots of fires. And lots of pollution, very bad air. Because they have too many people. Illegals coming in, need to control Border!
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:56PM
> And lots of pollution, very bad air.
You can totally fix, and wave the banner of States Rights, this by reverting Obama's oppressive upcoming mileage standards, and terminating California's CARB exemption, reverting L.A. to the Federal standards.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:07PM (5 children)
106 doesn't seem like all that much, unless the average temp is 70. Hell, we hit 102 here yesterday and I don't think anyone died. Then again, give it another day or two for the smell to peak, then we might find a few bodies.
Being the dumbest idiot in the land and president of the US should be 2 different people.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GDX on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:35PM
The problem is not the high temp per se but its combination with the high humidity that it also happen at the same time, 40ºC with high humidity is far worse than 45ºC with low humidity.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:51PM (2 children)
There's a few factors at play. The main factor is that Japan in general has very humid summers - on Monday, it looks like it was around 50% at that place that hit 106 F. That would put the heat index [weather.gov] around 135 F. The other factor is that AC isn't nearly as common as it is in western nations, so you don't just duck into a building and hunker down.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 27 2018, @01:13AM (1 child)
They should do what Al Bundy and his family did and go hang out on beach chairs in the supermarket. [dmcdn.net]
I believe in that same episode they bought an air-conditioner the size of a grid-level power transformer that had "Property of Erwin Rommel" stenciled on it, and later in that episode Peg asked Al something like, "What are we gonna do now, mister Desert Fox?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @02:26AM
Of all the anecdotes.............
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:43AM
Well, since Japan uses Celsius, that puts it at 6 degrees over the boiling point, surprised the death rate is so low.
But seriously, if the temperature went up to the low 40's here, people would be dying. Hardly anyone has air conditioning (though that's changing) and it's humid. Another big consideration is the daily lows. If you live in the desert, you get relieve at night, if you live somewhere where it doesn't cool down at night and air conditioning is rare, the cumulative effects add up. Shit, the temps have been in the low 30's here and it's brutal, though not deadly except for the unfortunate animals (and occasional kid) locked in vehicles.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:08PM (7 children)
It seems like the gods have abandoned Japan, sometimes. Even the 'Zilla god. What was his name - oh, yeah, Godzilla. Japan has it's ass handed to it by Mother Nature pretty regularly. India makes the news, each monsoon season, along with Pakistan. Other countries have catastrophes now and then. Japan? Japan and disaster is like repetitive redundancy. That's not even considering Fukushima.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:16PM (5 children)
"That's not even considering Fukushima."
.
.
Fukishima was not a disaster, Fukushima was the result of poor design practice ( motivated by greed ) creating a vulnerability that did not need to exist.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:28PM (1 child)
Errrr, uhhhh - maybe we have different definitions of disaster. When the Twin Towers fell in New York, that was a disaster, despite the fact that a number of people conspired to make it happen. A train wreck is a disaster, regardless whether the engineer screwed up, the tracks were substandard, or some damned fool intentionally derailed the plane.
I'll go on calling Fukushima a disaster, even though we agree that the engineers and the bean counters jointly screwed things up.
Alternative für Deutschland
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:36PM
"...derailed the plane"
Yeah that would be a really weird disaster.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bob_super on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:59PM (1 child)
> poor design practice ( motivated by greed ) creating a vulnerability that did not need to exist.
We shall only build ocean-cooled nukes at least 300m above sea level, just in case a once-in-50000-years storm, or ice age, comes by.
Everything in life is a trade-off. That doesn't mean the design is inherently bad.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:38PM
The tsunami that inundated Fukushima was NOT a "once per 50,000 year" event.
Those in charge of planning took a risk when they chose the level of flood protection
for the power plant, and they chose very poorly indeed.
Hopefully you will soon die as a result of poor engineering, and whoever cares about you
can inscribe "Close but no cigar" on your headstone. You. Stupid. Annoying. Prick.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:56PM
AC: I think you might be thinking of "natural disaster". The unadorned "disaster" is a superset including all events resulting in widespread damage.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:14PM
Isn't that GodZillow ? The god of realtors and property managers everywhere ?
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:11PM (2 children)
Didn't they recently shut down all of their nuclear plants?
(Score: 1) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:03PM
They did shut them down around 2015 [economist.com], but now they are turning them on again [nippon.com]. If people are dying of heat, electricity for air conditioning is going to be popular. I guess you could compare the heat deaths to the 1600 deaths that were attributed to the Fukushima evacuation [wikipedia.org]. Hopefully the restarted reactors are orders of magnitude safer than the old ones.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:47AM
Thank Exxon for financing Greenpeace. Bunch of hippies wouldn't have much power without heavy funding and when Exxon's scientists reported that global warming was real and nukes were one of the better ways to prevent it, well our version of capitalism took over and Greenpeace got more funding then they ever dreamed off.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Dale on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:33PM (4 children)
It doesn't seem like it was that hot to me either. I suspect people there aren't used to it and have no idea how to handle those temps though (I'd be useless in the cold). This week where I am outside the Austin area it was still 98 degrees at midnight after being 108-115 in the area in the afternoon (heat index over 120-125).
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @06:51PM
Sounds more like you have no idea what you're talking about.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by suburbanitemediocrity on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:44PM (1 child)
Yeah, I was in Phoenix in 1990 when it hit 50C (122F). It was just another day. My family did not even have an AC. We sleep on the floor with the door open and in front a lot of box fans when it got really hot. Everyone has an AC now though. On of the suckier things I remember (don't live there any more) is that the cold water was luke warm. Two weeks later I remember going to a party and it was 40C (103F) at 8pm (it gets humid there during the Monsoons from the beginning of July and it stays hot all night). An hour later, there was a massive hail and wind storm and remember everyone's yards looked like Christmas.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Friday July 27 2018, @08:07AM
I live in the Phoenix area. It's a goddamn blast furnace. I hear about "it's a dry heat" constantly, but I tell people, so is an OVEN.
It's already hit like 117F here. The sun is painful when it touches my skin. Arizona is a godforsaken place.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday July 27 2018, @10:44AM
Apart from the humidity factor, there's also practical issues like the design of buildings etc. In the UK we're currently suffering a "heatwave" because we've had a few weeks of consistently 30ºC+ temperatures - that's nothing globally-speaking, but from the UK perspective the last time such a long hot spell happened was 1976 and even the near-record one-off "peak" temperatures we're seeing are 5-10 yearly events. Its not just lack of A/C - our houses and offices just aren't designed for weather that only happens once every decade. If this was a regular occurrence, for example, I'd make significant changes to the ventilation of my house, add a sunshade over the patio etc. As it is, I've got an ancient portable AC unit (bought for historical reasons) that gets used on average about once a year.
OK, you're right - there's personal preparedness as well. It never occurs to me to grab a hat, a bottle of water and sunscreen when I leave the house (I only own a hat because I once visited Australia).
Then, we also get sustained snow and ice on a ~once-a-decade basis and people wonder why we aren't prepared (don't buy a snow plough on a 3-year-lease folks).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)
As second heat wave gains steam, 74 deaths https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/montreal-heat-wave-more-searing-weather-in-the-forecast-next-weekend [montrealgazette.com]
And that province is known for its harsh winters.
Maybe the weathers, they are changing
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:15PM (1 child)
People die of heat in Quebec when it hits 70F. Gotta remember their provincial flag has a polar bear, a penguin and an Eskimo on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:48PM
NYT [nytimes.com]: "Temperatures in Montreal soared to 93 degrees on Thursday - 23 degrees above the average daily temperature for July." Meaning that 70 degrees is the average daily temperature for July.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:06PM (6 children)
It was 118 F here in Yuma yesterday and I had to go to work. Suck it up people. Imagine if the settlers of the US were like our current generation. We'd be dead in the grand canyon having walked blindly into it with our heads in our smart phones, or we'd still be in Delaware whining about how hard it was to walk in crocs behind a team of oxen pulling a Tesla wagon.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:51PM (4 children)
The article says it's "particularly the elderly" who tend to succumb to the heat in Japan. I think that's true everywhere.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:05PM
Yes, particularly the elderly who cannot afford either A/C or the electricity to run it.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 4, Informative) by archfeld on Thursday July 26 2018, @11:07PM (2 children)
Yeah I understand, but Yuma is a retirement community and literally crawls with old people. They seem to thrive on the sun like reptiles here. On the flip side I see people wearing long sleeves and bundling up if the temperature ever get down to the 80's F here. If we ever saw a 40 F day we'd have deaths in the 100's due to old people freezing. Many places here have huge AC's and NO heaters. I think it snowed once back in the 1800's but that may just be a Christmas legend.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 27 2018, @01:23AM
Yeah, acclimatization takes a few years, but very doable for most people. My parents still live in Phoenix and I don't think they turn on the AC more than 2-3 times per year.
But when I moved up to Seattle for a while, I felt like I was freezing for the first three years whenever it dropped below 22C (71F). I did not own any clothes other than t-shirts, shorts and sandals. After a few years, I felt like I was going to die when it went above 26C (80F). The house in Phoenix had a sun room that never got below 28C (82F) in the summer, even with full AC. Our garden really loves it though. In March when it was barely warm enough for my Seattle tomato plants to survive outdoors, my mom would be sending me pictures of the bags of tomatoes she was getting every day from her little container garden.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 27 2018, @01:31AM
Don't forget about Sun City on the edge of Phoenix. 40,000 octogenarians driving around in golf carts with no AC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLdEfn9q9Q [youtube.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City,_Arizona [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27 2018, @08:59AM
> Suck it up people.
TFS doesn't say that 65 people complained about heat, it said that 65 people died from heat. How the fuck do you suck up dying?
> It was 118 F here in Yuma
Is that Yuma, Arizona? [wikipedia.org] The one sitting in a desert? You might want to look up the concept of "humidity", [wikipedia.org] which is just a bit higher in Japan; in summer, 70+%... [weather-and-climate.com] on average.