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Sun-baked, cracked and fissured dry mud of a drought-stricken reservoir bed under a bright sky.

Hydrosami, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

ScienceThe Japan Times · Korea JoongAng DailyAug 2, 2026

South Korea records its highest temperature ever, 42.5C in Yangsan, breaking a 122-year national record

The southern city of Yangsan reached 42.5 degrees Celsius (108.5 F), the highest temperature ever recorded in South Korea, breaking a national record that had stood since observations began more than a century ago, the Korea Meteorological Administration said. Authorities issued urgent heat warnings and told residents in the worst-hit areas to move immediately to cooling shelters. The record capped a brutal heatwave that has strained the country's power grid and been linked to a rising heat death toll.

Analogies

A Roman Drought Recorded by Livy (c. 435 BC)

Not only was there an absence of water from the heavens, but the earth, through lack of its natural moisture, barely sufficed to keep the rivers flowing.
Livy, The History of Rome, Book 4.30 (trans. Rev. Canon Roberts), via the Perseus Digital Library →

The 2003 European Heatwave

In the summer of 2003 a stubborn heat dome settled over Europe and would not lift, driving thermometers past 40C from Iberia to the Rhine. More than 70,000 people died before it broke, over 14,000 in France alone, most of them elderly and alone in cities never built to shed such heat. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in modern European memory, a warning of how a heatwave kills quietly and at scale.
Wikipedia, "2003 European heatwave" →

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II — The Fall of Phaethon

The Clouds disperse in Fumes, the wond'ring Moon Beholds her Brother's Steeds beneath her own; The Highlands smoak, cleft by the piercing Rays, Or, clad with Woods, in their own Fewel blaze. Next o'er the Plains, where ripen'd Harvests grow, The running Conflagration spreads below. But these are trivial Ills: whole Cities burn, And peopled Kingdoms into Ashes turn.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II, trans. Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden et al. (1717), via Wikisource →

The Book of Revelation — The Fourth Vial Poured on the Sun

And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
The Holy Bible, King James Version, Revelation 16:8 →
J. M. W. Turner's painting Regulus: a classical harbour scene overwhelmed by a huge blazing white sun burning at its centre.

J. M. W. Turner, Regulus (1828)

It is dominated by the large white sun in the centre.
Wikipedia, "Regulus (Turner)" →
Peter Paul Rubens's painting The Fall of Phaeton, showing Phaethon and the panicked sun-chariot horses tumbling from the sky amid thunderbolts.

Peter Paul Rubens, The Fall of Phaeton (c. 1604–1605)

Rubens chose to depict the myth at the height of its action, with the thunderbolts hurled by Zeus to the right. The thunderbolts provide the light contrast to facilitate the display of horror on the faces of Phaeton, the horses and other figures while preserving the darkness of the event.
Wikipedia, "The Fall of Phaeton (Rubens)" →