by Yuka Obayashi and Elaine Lies
TOKYO (Reuters) – The Japanese government has urged citizens to reduce their electricity consumption as much as possible, as eastern Japan has suffered the highest temperatures in at least 147 years for a week.
The Tokyo region experienced Friday, for the seventh consecutive day, temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius. The city of Nagoya, in the west of the country, is expected to reach 40 degrees Celsius. Slightly cooler temperatures and possibly rain could bring relief on Monday.
For the first time this week, authorities did not issue a warning of a possible power shortage, although supply remains under pressure amid rising energy prices.
The power grid in the Tokyo metropolitan area, which has 37 million inhabitants, came dangerously close to saturation on Thursday. However, the situation has calmed down, with the measures taken by the authorities to deal with the peaks in consumption this summer due to come into force at the beginning of July.
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Elaine Lies; with contributions by Mariko Katsumura; writing by Elaine Lies; French version Elena Vardon, editing by Kate Entringer)
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