Cold deaths from the Noto earthquake in Japan spark a public awareness campaign for hypothermia

This photo, taken on January 31, 2024, shows an evacuation center in the town of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan. Several people suffered from hypothermia at the evacuation site in January. (kyodo)

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Exposure to extremely cold temperatures caught many elderly people by surprise in the wake of the Noto Peninsula earthquake that struck on New Year's Day, and their experiences have prompted medical experts to warn of the dangers of hypothermia — even indoors. the house.

In general, people think of hypothermia as a condition that affects people outside the home. But the majority of its victims in Japan are elderly people who are freezing in their homes – sometimes due to crises caused by major disasters and other times for reasons stemming from their daily lives.

Often, the number of annual deaths from hypothermia exceeds the number of deaths from heat stroke. Doctors and experts are urging people outside disaster-hit areas in central Japan to take precautions against hypothermia on a regular basis.

They also expect the cases in the Noto area to raise awareness of the condition, which occurs when the body loses more heat than it generates.

On the night of January 6, 124 hours after the 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck, a woman in her 90s was rescued from a collapsed house in Suzu City, Ishikawa Prefecture.

Although she miraculously survived the ordeal, the woman's body temperature dropped to 33 degrees Celsius. She was barely conscious as she whispered: “I'm cold…” after rescue workers warmed her with hot water bottles for about three hours. Finally she regained full consciousness.

This attached photo shows international mountaineering doctor Kazuo Oshiro. (kyodo)

“It was a typical case of hypothermia,” said Kazuo Oshiro, a world-class mountaineering doctor.

“It is a condition in which the body loses heat due to the cold and the body’s core temperature drops below 35 degrees Celsius,” she said. “Shaking and loss of consciousness may occur, and in severe cases, loss of consciousness may lead to death.”

Sadly, this is exactly what happened to many earthquake victims. Police found that of the 222 Noto Peninsula earthquake deaths they analysed, 32 died of hypothermia or causes related to the cold conditions.

Although this number indicates the seriousness of mid-winter disasters, hypothermia most often occurs “indoors,” even in normal times.

Nationwide surveys conducted by the Japanese Society for Acute Medicine from 2018 to 2020 found that nearly 70 percent of hypothermia cases occurred indoors.

Of these, 80% were people aged 65 or over, while half of the cases were due to worsening chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and mental illness, making it difficult for those affected to move and keep warm.

The mortality rate reached 25% during this period, and cases were reported from all over the country.

In fact, the number of deaths from hypothermia is very severe. According to the Ministry of Health's vital statistics, the number has risen sharply in the country since the 1990s, and has exceeded 1,000 in most years since 2010.

There were approximately 21,000 deaths from hypothermia from 2000 to 2022, compared to 17,000 deaths from heat stroke during the same period.

“Even though this is the case, it has not received much attention,” noted Fumiaki Fujibe, a former specially appointed professor of climatology at Tokyo Metropolitan University, who has long studied the issues of heatstroke and hypothermia.

“There is a big contrast with heatstroke, as awareness and countermeasures have evolved,” he said. “Now, the earthquake has highlighted hypothermia, but there are many elderly people who develop this condition in normal daily life. We need measures and countermeasures at the societal level.”

Oshiro, the mountaineers' doctor, stressed the importance of individuals taking preventive measures to protect themselves from the cold, and advised people to remember to try to keep their bodies warm “inside and out.”

“Wear multiple layers of clothing and cover your head and neck to prevent your body heat from escaping,” Oshiro added. “Hot water bottles, which transfer heat directly to the body, are effective, easy to use and economical.”

One way to warm your body from the inside out is to make sure you “eat well and drink plenty of water,” she said. “When there is a calorie deficit, it makes it difficult for the body to produce heat.”

Oshiro said that older people with chronic diseases, in particular, tend to lose the ability to regulate their body temperature, and “many cases go unnoticed by others until they become seriously ill. It is important to monitor them and continue to communicate with them.” . .

(Written by Akio Nozawa)

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