By Kyu-seok Shim<\/p>\n
SEOUL, Aug 6 (Reuters) – South Korea’s heatwave is expected to peak over Seoul on Thursday, with the capital forecast \u200cto hit 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) in a spell \u200cof extreme weather already blamed for more than 20 deaths.<\/p>\n
“Extreme heat on a scale we \u200bhave never experienced is continuing day after day. Heatwave conditions once seen only in foreign news reports have now become our reality,” President Lee Jae Myung told a heatwave response meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Lee ordered ministries and local governments \u200cto mobilise all available \u2060personnel and resources until the heatwave eases, stressing protection of lives and safety, stronger safeguards for vulnerable residents and \u2060stricter enforcement of rest breaks for outdoor workers during the hottest hours.<\/p>\n
The forecast temperature would bring Seoul close to its record high of 39.6 C, \u200bset in \u200bAugust 2018, during the country’s last \u200bhistoric heatwave.<\/p>\n
The warning came as \u200cSeoul endured another stifling night before what forecasters say could be one of the hottest days in the city’s modern history.<\/p>\n
Temperatures in some neighbourhoods barely slipped below 30 C overnight, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), while media showed crowds seeking refuge in streams, department stores and other air-conditioned \u200cspaces.<\/p>\n
The Korea Baseball Organization cancelled all 10 \u200bgames scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday after \u200bsome spectators fainted in the \u200bheat, media reported, including one fan who collapsed during \u200ca game in Incheon.<\/p>\n
Meteorologists say Typhoon \u200bDolphin, despite posing \u200bno direct threat to South Korea, may be contributing to the scorching conditions.<\/p>\n
The KMA said Dolphin has helped strengthen easterly winds that \u200bcross the Korean Peninsula’s \u200cmountainous spine and descend over western regions as hot, dry air, \u200bintensifying heat in Seoul and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim; Editing \u200bby Ed Davies and Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kyu-seok Shim SEOUL, Aug 6 (Reuters) – South Korea’s heatwave is expected to peak over Seoul on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54386,43865,18354,57235,29722,8120,146,112,33],"class_list":["post-111466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seoul","tag-degrees-fahrenheit","tag-extreme-heat","tag-extreme-weather","tag-forecast-temperature","tag-heatwave","tag-korea-meteorological-administration","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-seoul","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}