Japan’s electricity grid creaked on Thursday under the strain of Tokyo’s hottest June since records began, but a power crunch that could have deprived tens of millions of electricity was narrowly averted and authorities prepared to lift warnings. Temperatures of nearly 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) were marked in some parts of greater Tokyo, home to 37 million people, on the sixth day of a heatwave that began after the earliest end to the capital’s rainy season in decades. Maximum highs are not forecast to drop to 30C (86F) before Tuesday. But power outages were averted, despite the loss of output from a 600-megawatt (MW) plant even as generators feeding Tokyo worked up to carry their load with only about 3% reserve capacity, the level below which blackouts can occur. Authorities said they would lift a warning of short power supplies that had been in […]