In Japan, Deadly Heat Wave Tests Endurance of Even the Most Stoic

TOKYO — Triple-digit temperatures have hospitalized 23,000 people just in the past week, nearly double the previous record. Some outdoor pools are too hot for swimming. Construction workers wear battery-powered fans to avoid heatstroke, which has killed 86 people since May.

Even for the stoic Japanese, known for tolerating all manner of discomfort, the summer of 2018 has pushed their limits.

The temperature reached a record of almost 106 degrees Fahrenheit at a city outside Tokyo, part of a heat wave described by an official from the Japan Meteorological Agency as “unprecedented” and a “disaster,” and forecast to continue for at least two more weeks.

About half the people taken to the hospital this week are older than 65. In Japan — which has a word, “gaman,” that denotes a sense of bearing with it — the elderly are perhaps more susceptible than anyone to feeling they should simply put up with the heat.

Elderly people grew up without air-conditioning, and now that they live on pensions, many are also cost-conscious.

“They think energy conservation is a good thing, especially after the 3-11 disaster,” said Kazuyo Oyamada, the chief consultant at Mizuho Information & Research Institute. She was referring to the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 2011, which led to a shutdown of the nuclear plants that had provided almost a third of Japan’s electricity.