East Asia is baking in ‘cruelly hot’ summer

A deadly heat wave is gripping large parts of East Asia, bringing the hottest temperature on record in South Korea and complicating earthquake recovery efforts in Japan.

A deadly heat wave is gripping large parts of East Asia, bringing the hottest temperature on record in South Korea and complicating earthquake recovery efforts in Japan.

Extreme heat has been linked to 19 deaths in South Korea since mid-May, with President Lee Jae Myung calling it a national disaster Tuesday.

“We need to make efforts for ​a fundamental overhaul of the national crisis system, ‌since this extreme weather is becoming normal,” he said at a Cabinet meeting.

On Sunday, temperatures hit 42.5 degrees Celsius (108 degrees Fahrenheit) in the southeastern city of Yangsan, the highest in 122 years of record-keeping.