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| Above, a view of Yoyogi Park from Mori Tower. The park is the large green area at the upper right. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Japan has had its problems these past few years.
Earthquakes, torrential rains, landslides, nuclear radiation leaks, typhoons and now a mosquito-spread virus has forced the closure of Tokyo's massive Yoyogi Park near Shibuya.
According to The Japan News (Yomiuri Shimbun):
Tiny insects have forced the nearly complete closure of Tokyo’s sprawling Yoyogi Park, a “last resort” taken for the first time in the nearly 50-year-history of the park.
Metropolitan authorities on Thursday closed the northern section of the Shibuya Ward park, or about 80 percent of its total area, after mosquitoes carrying the dengue virus were discovered over a wide area in the park.
What's the dengue virus? An article from Japan Today explains further:
TOKYO —The Tokyo government on Thursday closed most of Yoyogi Park, a popular green spot in the Japanese metropolis, after dengue-carrying mosquitoes were found there, an official said.
The outbreak is the first in 70 years in Japan and has so far infected 59 people in 12 prefectures, including a young model who has posed for Japanese Playboy and had been sent to the park for a photo shoot.
The disease, also called “tropical flu”, is spread by the tiger mosquito, a species endemic to Japan.
No one has so far died in Japan from the disease, which claims scores of lives every year in other, more infected parts of the world.For more on the dengue virus, here is a link for information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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