Scores of horses suffer sunstroke at samurai event

No horsing around: People wearing samurai armour racing horses during the annual Soma Nomaoi Festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, which killed two animals at this year’s edition. — AFP

Tokyo: Organisers of an annual horse festival in Japan, where riders dressed as samurai re-enact battles, said they were considering changing dates for the gathering next year after sunstroke affected 111 animals, killing two of them.

Japan has recorded its hottest average July temperatures in over 100 years, and on Tuesday, heatstroke alerts were in place in 26 out of 47 prefectures, with the mercury forecast to hit 38ºC in places.