Seoul: South Korea's first death from heat-related illnesses this year was reported Saturday amid an early heat wave, marking the earliest such case on record in any year, health authorities said.

According to Yonhap News Agency, a man in his 80s in Seoul was reported to have died of heat-related diseases, as confirmed by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The KDCA cited its emergency room monitoring system for heat-related illnesses to track this unfortunate incident.

This incident marked the earliest heat illness-related death since the monitoring system was introduced. This year, the KDCA began implementing the monitoring system across 516 emergency rooms nationwide starting Friday.

The report of the earliest heat-related death comes amid an unusually early heat wave, with the nation's average high temperature reaching 28.2 degrees Celsius on Saturday and Seoul's daily high hitting 31.3 degrees Celsius, which is above the seasonal average.

A total of seven patients visited emergency rooms due to heat-related diseases on Friday. By region, Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, reported the highest number of patients with four cases, followed by the capital with two cases, and Incheon, located west of Seoul, with one case.