No immediate relief from scorching heat expected

By Kim Rahn

With no rain expected for at least five days, the scorching heat is likely to continue for a while, with nationwide heat wave warnings still standing.

Since July 23, more than 350 people received treatment at emergency rooms across the country, for heat stroke, exhaustion and fainting from heat, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of them, seven died _ almost one person per day.

These numbers are about threefold for the same period last year, during which one person died and 124 people received hospital treatment.

Farms are reporting massive death toll figures of livestock to authorities. The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said 15,000 chickens died at a farm in Incheon, while 150 tons of short-necked clams died from high water temperatures at two clam farms in Buan, North Jeolla Province, and about 4,000 flatfish at a farm on Wan Island off the coast of the province.

Insurance companies, which pay compensation to those who have their animals insured against disaster, received over 60 reports from distraught farmers. According to them, some 95,000 chickens died, along with 5,000 ducks and 300 pigs.

A car running in downtown Incheon caught fire at around 5 a.m. on Thursday. The engine burned out but the driver was not hurt. A firefighter said the engine appeared to be superheated. On Wednesday, a similar incident took place on a community bus conveying 20 passengers in the port city, also presumably because of an overheated engine.

On Thursday night, a truck caught fire on an expressway in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province. Police suspect an overheated brake lining was the cause of the fire. In Cheonan in that province, the neon sign of a karaoke room caught fire, burning down the entire property. Firefighters believe that the sign was also superheated.

For seven consecutive calendar dates after July 27, Seoul experienced “tropical nights,” defined by temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius or above, the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said Friday.

Almost all other cities around the country are having similar sultry nights except for cities on the east coast. However, Daegu had 12 tropical nights.

The KMA said the heat will continue for a while and also depends on how Typhoon Haikui, which developed in the sea 1,340 kilometers south of Tokyo on Friday morning, will move.

“The typhoon is small for now, but it may grow while heading northwest toward the Korean Peninsula. From the influence of the typhoon, we expect that rain will fall in Jeju on Wednesday and expand to northern parts of the country in the next couple of days,” a weather agent said.

The heat will abate in the middle of the month, but the unusually higher temperatures than average may continue through early September, he said.