Freezing Tokyo Sees Most Ambulance Calls for 80 Years

Tokyo residents have been battling through snow and ice as the mercury drops (AFP Photo/Toshifumi KITAMURA)
Tokyo’s ambulance service has experienced its busiest day in more than 80 years, officials said Thursday, amid icy conditions as the Japanese capital shivers through its coldest temperatures in decades.

The Yomiuri Shimbun
The Tokyo fire department, which runs the ambulance service, said it had responded to 2,826 calls on Wednesday following rare and heavy snow that sparked chaos in one of the world’s most populous cities.
“Generally, we receive more calls in winter. But we think the combination of influenza, heavy snow and cold weather contributed to the record high number,” a fire department spokesman told AFP.

Tokyo residents have been battling through snow and ice as the mercury drops (AFP Photo/Toshifumi KITAMURA)
The number of emergency call-outs was the highest since the service began in 1936 and well above the average of around 2,000.
The annual number of emergency calls has been on the rise for the past eight years in Tokyo, the spokesman added … (read more)
via AFP
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