August 17, 2007	Friday	Sha’aban 3, 1428

TOKYO, Aug 16: The temperature hit an all-time high in Japan on Thursday with the extreme summer heat bending train rails and killing at least 13 people this week. The mercury shot up to a record 40.9 degrees Celsius in central Gifu prefecture and Saitama prefecture near Tokyo, the weather agency said.

The reading eclipsed the previous highest temperature recorded in Japan of 40.8 degrees set in northern Yamagata prefecture in 1933.

“It's so hot I'm getting irritated,” Kumiko Otani, 72, said as she strolled the glitzy Ginza shopping district of Tokyo, where the temperature rose to 37 degrees.

“I've been in department stores and shops where the air-conditioning is on. Staying inside my house and using air-conditioning is a waste so I've been out all day moving from one place to another in search of cool air,” she said, wiping sweat off her brow.

The hot weather was also taking a toll on the young.

Taro Takeyama, 27, said he made sure to take along sunscreen and a moisturising spray for his arms when he went out.

“Such intense heat makes my brain go blank, so I'm forcing myself to drink fluids constantly,” he said.

The heat wave comes amid growing concern about global warming. A UN report in April warned that climate change threatened nearly a third of the world's species with extinction.

Meteorologists said the heat wave was due to high air pressure caused by hot temperatures on the surface of the north-western Pacific Ocean.

On Wednesday, a commuter train running north of Tokyo had to stop for three hours as heat bent the rails, which had to be cooled down with water.

“The rails are made of steel and naturally heat can bloat them. But it is unprecedented to have this kind of trouble,” a spokesman for Tobu Railway said.—AFP