Seoul, July 31 || A total of 16 people have died from heat-related illnesses in South Korea so far this year as the country continues to endure severe heat waves, health authorities said on Thursday.
A total of 2,900 patients had visited emergency rooms for heat-related conditions as of Wednesday since mid-May, when authorities launched the heat-related illness surveillance system. Of those patients, 16 have died, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), News Agency reported.
As the heat wave persists, daily cases of heat-related illnesses have exceeded 100 for nine consecutive days since July 22. Deaths have also been reported for four days in a row.
Compared with the same period last year, the number of patients has increased about 2.6 times, while the number of deaths more than doubled, the KDCA said.
Among the patients reported this year, heat exhaustion, commonly known as sunstroke, accounted for 60.7 per cent, followed by heat stroke at 16.4 per cent, heat cramps at 13.4 per cent and heat syncope at 8.1 per cent.
By age group, those aged 65 and older accounted for 31.7 per cent of the total patients.
Most parts of the country have come under heat wave alerts.