SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s professional baseball league cancelled a scheduled game on Friday due to high temperatures, the first time in the league’s 42-year history that it invoked a provision that allows for a game cancellation due to extreme heat.
The game between LG Twins and Lotte Giants was scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) local time in the southeastern city of Ulsan, where the daily high temperatures exceeded 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) for a second straight day on Friday.
A Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) official said Friday’s heat warning cancellation was the first since the league was launched in 1982. Ground temperatures in the Ulsan stadium were higher than 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) at times during the day, he said.
South Korea is under heat warnings for all of the country, a week after the end of the annual monsoon season when heavy rains pounded mostly the central regions causing flooding and landslides.
South Korea is in a temperate zone in the northern hemisphere with four distinct seasons, but the climate is seen to be getting warmer, according to experts and officials who cited annual average temperatures.
Several regions of the country have been under daily heat warnings since July 21, issued by the meteorological agency when daily high temperatures exceed 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit).
(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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