As Tokyo’s June flames out in record heatwave, a power plant shutdown stokes blackout concern

Japan’s electricity grid creaked on Thursday under the strain of Tokyo’s hottest June streak since 1875, as the sudden shutdown of a power plant left tens of millions of residents a step closer to blackouts that would bring air conditioners to a halt.

Temperatures of around 40 degrees were predicted in some areas in Greater Tokyo, home to thirty-seven million people, on the sixth day of a heatwave that kicked in after the earliest end to the capital’s rainy season in decades. Maximum highs are not forecast to drop to 30 degrees before next Tuesday.

With power producers already scrambling to bring nearly fifty-year-old turbines out of mothballs, the unexpected closure of a 600 megawatt (MW)