The death toll from this summer's prolonged heatwave in South Korea has risen to 42. 

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday that between between May 20th and August sixth, three-thousand-438 people were estimated to have visited emergency rooms across the country for heat-related illnesses, and 42 of them died. 

The number of people suffering heat-related ailments is already the highest since related data began to be compiled in 2011. 

Last year, fewer than one-thousand-600 people were diagnosed with such symptoms during the whole summer season, measured between May 29th and September eighth. 

Among the patients this year, men outnumbered women at two-thousand-486 to 952. Those aged 65 or older were tallied at one-thousand-137, accounting for a third of the patients.