Tokyo (AFP)
A 50-year-old worker died Thursday at a construction site in Tokyo linked to the preparations for the Olympic Games to be held in a year in the Japanese capital, where there is currently a suffocating heat, announced Friday the organizers.
This Japanese worker was installing an electrical cable outside a large convention and exhibition center called Tokyo Big Sight, located in the capital's bay.
He was found unconscious Thursday early afternoon and his death was confirmed one hour later after his emergency transportation to hospital.
The cause of his death was not specified by the organizing committee of the Olympics. But according to the media, it is linked to the extreme weather conditions currently in Tokyo where, at high temperature, an air humidity of more than 80% is added: a potentially lethal combination for people who are frail or an intense physical effort.
Some 18,000 hospitalizations and 57 deaths (mostly elderly) were reported in Japan last week due to heat stroke and sunstroke.
So far, at least two other workers have died on Tokyo Olympics since they started, including one who, at the age of 23, committed suicide because of long hours of work that have become unbearable.
This provisional assessment is admittedly less dramatic than in the case of the previous Summer Games in Rio in 2016, with 11 workers dead, but none had died in London in 2012.
© 2019 AFP