A 96-year-old man has died of heatstroke in the southern prefecture of Oita as extremely hot weather covered Japan.

The man was found lying in the yard of his family house in Bungo-ono City at about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

He was brought to a hospital but died about two and a half hours later.

Local police say that the cause of death was heatstroke.

The temperature there soared to 35.8 degrees Celsius shortly after 3:30 p.m., the record high for the year.

Elsewhere, authorities suspect heatstroke as the cause of death of a man in Aichi Prefecture, a woman in Ehime Prefecture and another woman in Tokushima Prefecture where high temperatures were recorded.