Death toll in Japan floods rises to 200

July 12, 2018
Tokyo:The death toll from the torrential rains that have battered Japan reached 200, authorities said on Thursday, as search and rescue missions continue to find dozens still missing in the wake of flooding and landslides.

More than 70,000 personnel were involved in ongoing search and rescue missions for the 60 or more people still unaccounted for in the areas affected by the deluge, Xinhua news agency reported.

These include the hardest-hit regions of Hiroshima, Okayama and Ehime prefectures.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that as of early Thursday morning, 6,700 people remained in emergency evacuation shelters.

As some of the shelters were without air-conditioning, the Health Ministry warned of heat-related illnesses. Te weather agency said daytime temperatures could reach 35 degrees Celsius in the coming week.

The ministry, specifically, warned about the possibility of food poisoning, as in the past people fell ill in such shelters after consuming food that had been left out in the heat for too long amid lack of refrigerators.

Around 240,000 homes were cut off from water in western Japan and transportation systems were also severely disrupted.

The Transport Ministry, West Japan Railway Co. and local operators of the 27 lines in the affected areas, reported damage at over 100 locations and will be unable to restart services within the next few days.
m to health services and care, a study has found.

Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community often face barriers to availing of health services, including of insurance, besides stigma and discrimination.

“A very large body of research in economics and sociology demonstrates that marriage is protective for health for heterosexual individuals, but ours is the first to show that marriage policy has meaningful effects on health care access for sexual-minority men,” said lead author Christopher Carpenter, Professor at the Vanderbilt University in the US.

“We found that lesbian, gay, or bisexual adults were more likely to get married after having access to legal same-sex marriage, and for men, that is associated with a statistically significant increase in the probability that they have health insurance, a usual source of care, and a routine health check-up,” added Gilbert Gonzales Jr., Assistant Professor at the varsity.

The results were based on the analysis of 16 years of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System.

While there was increased health insurance coverage and health care access for gay men, no similar effect was observed for lesbian adults.

However, no other effects were seen on mental health, behaviours such as cigarette smoking or heavy drinking.

“That might mean that it’s too soon to see some of these changes, since legalized, same-sex marriage is a fairly recent phenomenon in the US,” Gonzales said.
(IANS)