A panel of infectious disease experts has urged people in Tokyo to be on high alert for the coronavirus as a rapid increase in infections is just beginning.
Officials of the Tokyo metropolitan government and experts on public health and infectious diseases met on Thursday to assess the coronavirus situation.
The coronavirus continues to spread across Japan with Tokyo reporting 317 new cases on Wednesday. This marks the first time since late August that the capital's daily tally has exceeded 300.
New cases have topped 100 for the ninth day in a row. So far, more than 33,000 people have tested positive in the metropolis.
This year has seen a record high number of days that Chinese government ships have sailed just outside Japan's territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
The Japan Coast Guard said that as of 9:00 a.m. on Monday, four Chinese vessels were sailing in waters off Kubashima, one of the Senkakus. The area is in the contiguous zone just outside of Japan's territorial waters.
High school students are helping tangerine farmers in western Japan with the harvest to make up for a shortage of seasonal workers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Farmers in the city of Uwajima, Ehime Prefecture, are having difficulty recruiting seasonal workers from across the country this year, even though the harvest season has already begun.
Weather officials in Japan say Tropical Storm Cham-hom is veering away from the country after bringing record downpours to the Izu Island chain in the Pacific, but they warn that the risks of mudslides remain high.
The Meteorological Agency says Cham-hom was located 150 kilometers southeast of Hachijojima Island as of noon on Sunday.
A Japanese high court has upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to pay compensation to those affected by the 2011 nuclear accident triggered by a tsunami.
The ruling is the first issued by an appellate court making the state accountable in lawsuits related to the nuclear accident.
A large typhoon is moving over the country's Southwest, skirting the southern main island of Kyushu. Weather officials are calling on people to stay on alert.
Officials say that as of 9 a.m. on Monday, Typhoon Haishen was 110 kilometers north of Tsushima City in Nagasaki Prefecture. They say it was moving north at 40 kilometers per hour.
Japan's Meteorological Agency says a powerful typhoon that's on course to hit the southwest of the country could make landfall at close to full strength. Typhoon Haishen is forecast to hit the island of Kyushu on Sunday or Monday.
Weather officials are urging people to take shelter in a safe place before the typhoon lands.
Weather officials in Japan say the country's sea surface temperatures in August were the highest on record.
The Meteorological Agency says the average water surface temperatures of the Pacific side of eastern and western Japan, as well as the southern islands of Okinawa and Amami, were around 30 degrees Celsius last month.