Extreme heat triggers outages, heatstroke deaths

Pedestrians walk amid a heat haze forming above the streets in Daegu, where daytime temperatures reached as high as 36 degrees Celsius on Monday. (Yonhap)

As extreme heat persists nationwide, widespread damage including power and water outages, as well as heatstroke-related deaths, have been reported as of Monday.

On Sunday evening, 255 out of 1,089 households in the Miju Apartments in Dongdaemun-gu, eastern Seoul, experienced a power outage caused by the persisting scorching heat.

A Korea Electric Power Corporation official explained to The Korea Herald that the blackout resulted from a fault in the apartment complex's transformer, which overheated due to the abnormally high temperatures. The power outage lasted for 21 hours, before being restored as of 5:55 p.m. on Monday.

On Saturday, a baseball game in Daejeon was paused for 38 minutes due to a power outage that shut off the stadium's electronic scoreboard and automated ball-strike system.

The heat wave also disrupted water supplies in some regions and caused fires.

As of Monday morning, Cheongdo County in North Gyeongsang Province faced a shortage of clean water due to a significant increase in water usage compared to its daily production rate.

According to fire authorities, the heat wave caused fires in the outdoor units of air conditioners installed outside apartments in Mapo-gu, Seoul, and Daejeon City on Monday. An air conditioner at a restaurant in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, also caught fire.

Korea experienced intense heat over the weekend, with temperatures feeling as hot as 38 C in some parts of the country. Five deaths due to heat-related illnesses have been reported over the weekend, increasing the number of heat-related deaths to 13.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported a sharp increase in heat-related illnesses, with 154 new cases on Saturday alone. From Monday through Friday, 386 cases were reported across 507 emergency rooms nationwide.

Since May 20, 1,546 cases of heat-related illnesses have been reported as of Saturday.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, a total of 257,483 livestock also perished between June 11 and Saturday.

Due to the heat wave, sea temperatures have risen, resulting in significant fish deaths at farms around Jeju Island. The island's coasts have been under a high temperature advisory -- issued when temperatures exceed 28 degrees Celsius for more than three days -- since July 31.

By Lee Jung-joo(lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com)