SEOUL (AP):
Fans fainting at a baseball park. Lions dying at a zoo. A woman taking shelter in a car found dead. A doctor advising people to eat dog meat to promote stamina.
The scenes caused by a record heatwave in Northeast Asia illustrate how extreme temperatures have gripped South Korea, North Korea and Japan.
In most of South Korea, a major heatwave advisory was in place Wednesday as temperatures in densely populated greater Seoul, home to 20 million people, and adjacent areas soared as high as 39° degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit).
North Korean authorities have issued a heatwave advisory in many areas and called for people to take safety steps to avoid heat-related health problems.
Japan’s anti-disaster agency reported more than 18,000 people with heat stroke symptoms were transported to hospitals during the week of July 20 to 26.
Since mid-May in South Korea, about 2,220 people have been diagnosed with heat-related illnesses and 19 have died, according to a report from the Interior and Safety Ministry. About 17,140 livestock, such as chickens, ducks and pigs, and about 160,000 farmed fishes also have died.
On Sunday, the southeastern city of Yangsan saw temperatures reaching 42.5° Celsius (108.5 Fahrenheit), the highest figure recorded since weather observation began in Korea in 1904.
In a cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Lee Jae Myung instructed officials to view the ongoing heatwave as “a national disaster” and make all-out efforts to protect lives.
On Tuesday night, a spectator in his 20s collapsed while watching a baseball game between SSG Landers and LG Twins at a stadium in Incheon city, west of Seoul. Emergency personnel administered CPR and transported him to a hospital, halting the game for about 10 minutes.
Another fan in his 20s fell unconscious and received treatment at the stadium after the game, according to the Korea Baseball Organization, which announced that all 10 games scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday were cancelled and would be rescheduled.
Min Son Yong, deputy director of the internal medicine department at Pyongyang General Hospital, told North Korea’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Sunday that people should eat dog meat and fish porridge to supplement protein to beat the heat.
Euphemistically known as ‘dangogi’, or sweet meat, dog meat has long been considered a stamina food in North Korea and is traditionally eaten during the hottest time of the year.
Min also recommended watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes, mung beans and ginger to cool down, the newspaper reported.
Dog meat also has been eaten in China, Vietnam and African countries, as well as in South Korea, which plans to formally ban slaughtering, breeding or selling dog meat for human consumption beginning next year.
Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a heat stroke alert for most of the western and southern Japan on Wednesday. While temperatures in the Tokyo region temporarily fell this week, intense heat continued to hit southern Japan.
In the southwestern city of Kumamoto, relief and clean-up work continued following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake on July 28 that killed 38 people, including a woman in her 70s who developed heat stroke while taking shelter in a car. More than 43,000 households were still without water on Wednesday.
Three lions have died at a Tokyo zoo, with a number of their animal peers developing apparent heat stroke symptoms.
Autopsies showed dehydration and multiple organ failure in all three animals and officials say they believe heat was the cause of the health problems.
