24 Students Suffer Heatstroke, 8 Taken to Hospital While Practicing for Sports Festival at Tokyo Middle School Monday

At a junior high school in Machida, Tokyo today, 24 students practicing for the school's sports festival suffered symptoms of heatstroke, of which 8 were taken to the hospital by ambulance as of this writing. According to the Tokyo Fire Department and other sources, the incident occurred just past 12:30 the afternoon of Monday, May 27 at Minami Naruse J.H.S. in the Tokyo suburb of Machida.

A spokesperson for the Machida Board of Education confirmed that the students had been practicing for this Saturday's sports festival since midmorning for two and a half hours including breaks. Students began to stream into the school nurse's office complaining that they weren't feeling well and had sharp headaches.

In Tokyo over the weekend 107 people were known to have been taken to the emergency room for treatment for suspected heatstroke.

translated by Brett Larner