Japan's heat wave drives up food prices, prison inmate dies
25/07/2018 13:29
TOKYO, July 25 (Reuters) - Vegetable prices in Japan are
spiking as much as 65 percent in the grip of a gruelling heat
wave, which drove temperatures on Wednesday to records in some
areas hit by flooding and landslides, hampering clean-up and
recovery efforts.
As many as 65 people died in the week to July 22, up from 12
the previous week, government figures show, while a prisoner in
his forties died of a heat stroke in central Miyoshi city, amid
what medical experts called an "unprecedented" heat wave.
An agriculture ministry official in Tokyo, the capital,
warned against "pretty severe price moves" for vegetables if
predictions of more weeks of hot weather held up, resulting in
less rain than usual.
"It's up to the weather how prices will move from here," the
official said. "But the Japan Meteorological Agency has
predicted it will remain hot for a few more weeks, and that we
will have less rain than the average."
The most recent data showed the wholesale price of cabbage
was 129 yen ($1.16) per kg in Tokyo on Monday, the ministry
said, for example, an increase of 65 percent over the average
late-July price of the past five years.
Temperatures in Japan's western cities of Yamaguchi and
Akiotacho reached record highs of 38.8 Celsius (101.8
Fahrenheit) and 38.6 C (101.5 F), respectively, on Wednesday
afternoon.
In Takahashi, another western city and one of the areas hit
hardest by this month's flooding, the mercury reached 38.7 C
(101.7 F), just 0.3 degrees off an all-time high.
In Miyoshi, where the prisoner died after a heat stroke, the
temperature on the floor of his cell was 34 degrees C (93 F)
shortly before 7 a.m. on Tuesday. The room had no
air-conditioning, like most in the prison.
Authorities who found him unresponsive in his cell sent him
to a hospital outside the prison, but he was soon pronounced
dead, a prison official said.
"It is truly regrettable that an inmate lost his life,"
Kiyoshi Kageyama, head of the prison, said in a statement. "We
will do our utmost in maintaining (prisoners') health, including
taking anti-heat stroke steps."
On the Tokyo stock market, shares in companies expected to
benefit from a hot summer, such as ice-cream makers, have risen
in recent trade.
Shares in Imuraya Group 2209.T , whose subsidiary sells
popular vanilla and red-bean ice cream, were up nearly 10
percent on the month, while Ishigaki Foods 2901.T , which sells
barley tea, surged 50 percent over the same period.
In neighbouring South Korea, the unremitting heat has killed
at least 14 people this year, the Korea Centers for Diseases
Control and Prevention said.
The heat wave was at the level of a "special disaster",
South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Tuesday, as
electricity use surged and vegetable prices rose.
($1=111.0900 yen)
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo and Jeongmin Kim in
SEOUL; Additional reporting by Ritsuko Ando and Aaron Sheldrick
in TOKYO;
Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
((kiyoshi.takenaka@thomsonreuters.com; +81 3 6441 1810; Reuters
Messaging: kiyoshi.takenaka.reuters.com@reuters.net))