Photo/Illutration A mother and her child take a break from the heat under mist sprinklers in Tokyo’s Roppongi district on May 17. (Jin Nishioka)

An unseasonable heat wave pushed temperatures up across the country on May 17 to record highs in some parts, and also sent seven junior high school students to the hospital in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, with heat stroke.

Teachers called an ambulance just past noon on May 17 after the third-year students became sick and unresponsive while they were practicing outdoors for the school’s annual sports festival, according to the local education board.

The area recorded a temperature of 28.9 degrees at noon.

Three students were rushed to the hospital at an elementary school in Habikino, Osaka Prefecture, the same day.

They were among nine sixth-graders who fell ill during gym class.

The heat wave resulted in summer-like temperatures surpassing 30 degrees at more than 290 locations, including 31.6 degrees in central Tokyo.

This was the hottest day recorded for May in Ibigawa, Gifu Prefecture, with the mercury hitting 35.1 degrees.

Records for the month’s highest temperature were also broken in Koshu, Yamanashi Prefecture, and Kanna, Gunma Prefecture, at 34.8 degrees in both locations.

It was also the hottest day of the year so far in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, and Iizuka, Fukuoka Prefecture.

The summer heat was brought by warm air from the south and the foehn effect, where warm and dry winds descend a mountain.

Weather officials are also forecasting hot weather for May 18, particularly in the northern and eastern parts of the country.

(Takuya Miyano also contributed to this article.)

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