Heat-related illnesses are increasing amid the prolonged heat wave, with the number of cases approaching 28-hundred.

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Wednesday, 126 people were admitted to some 510 emergency rooms around the country for heat-related illnesses the previous day, including a fatality in Incheon.

The tally of heat-related emergency room visits has exceeded 100 every day since July 22.

Since May 15, when the agency began counting heat-related emergency room visits for the summer season, the number stands at two-thousand-768, and 13 of those patients have passed away.

The total between May 20 and July 29 was two-thousand-752 patients, or two-point-six times the number from the same period last year, when four people died.

Sixty-point-four percent of the patients experienced heat exhaustion, while 16-point-six percent suffered heatstroke and 13-point-five percent reported heat cramps.