August M
Summer harvests usually bring abundant fresh produce to bustling markets.
Yet when relentless heat bakes the earth, even the hardiest crops can wither. A record-breaking summer heatwave is turning fertile fields across East Asia into scorching ovens and shattering weather records, reports The Guardian.
Boiled in the dirt
In South Korea’s Gangwon province, potato farmer Lee Sang-hyuk dug into his fields only to find his crop completely ruined. Heat trapped inside the earth softened the roots into mush. “It’s not just one or two fields like this. How can I even put it into words? It’s so upsetting,” he told SBS.
The ruined harvest is part of a dangerous heatwave gripping the region. The Guardian reported that Yangsan hit 42.5C on 2 August, setting South Korea’s highest recorded temperature since 1904. Heatstroke killed at least 31 people nationwide, while over two million farmed fish and livestock died.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned that the extreme weather was “unlike anything we have experienced before.” He called for urgent reforms because “this extreme weather is becoming the new normal.”
In Gwangju, watermelon farmer Hong Kyung-hee watched his fruit rot overnight. “In my 50 years of farming, this is the first time,” he told KBS.
Cruelly hot days
Across the sea in Japan, temperatures topped 40C. Officials introduced a new weather designation called “kokushobi,” or “cruelly hot day.” At a city zoo in Tokyo, three lions died from suspected heatstroke.
Japan’s Weather Attribution Centre calculated that the intense heat would be “virtually impossible” without global warming. Meanwhile, Hong Kong posted a record 36.9C. Former observatory head Lam Chiu Ying criticized worker safety rules, calling the warning system “just a display piece used to decorate a shop window.”
Extreme conditions also hit China’s Xinjiang region, where a station recorded 50C. Further north, Pyongyang in North Korea suffered a stretch of tropical nights above 25C.
Data from the World Meteorological Organization shows Asia warmed twice as fast between 1991 and 2025 as it did over the previous three decades. For small family farms in South Korea, uninsured crop losses threaten to push growers into deep debt.
Sources: The Guardian, SBS, KBS, Facebook, WMO
