JAPAN ;REPORTER DIES AFTER 159 HOURS OF OVERTIME

Japanese workers famously put in long hours, leading, in extreme cases, to karoshi, or death from overwork.

Japanese media outfit, NHK, has apologized to the parents of deceased Japanese reporter, Miwa Sado, who died of heart failure after reportedly working for 159 hours of overtime in a month.

Sado, who had been covering political news in Tokyo was found dead in her bed in July 2013, reportedly clutching her mobile phone.

"The chairman met the parents at their home in the morning and apologised," an NHK spokesman told AFP.

A government inquest a year after her death ruled that it was linked to excessive overtime. She had taken two days off in the month before she died.

NHK eventually made the case public four years later, bowing to pressure from Sado's parents to take action to prevent a recurrence.

'Karoshi'

The case has again highlighted the Japanese problem of "karoshi" — meaning death from overwork — and is an embarrassing revelation for NHK, which has campaigned against the nation's long-hours culture.

Payments made for work related damages in Japan. AFP

Sato covered Tokyo assembly elections for the broadcaster in June 2013 and an upper-house vote for the national parliament the following month.

She died three days after the upper-house election.

"My heart breaks at the thought that she may have wanted to call me" in her last moments, her mother told the Asahi daily.

"With Miwa gone, I feel like half of my body has been torn off. I won't be able to laugh for real for the rest of my life."

The revelation shocked the nation as NHK has actively reported tragic deaths at other companies, including the 2015 suicide of a young woman at major advertising agency Dentsu who logged more than 100 hours of overtime in one month.

Every year in Japan, long working hours are blamed for dozens of deaths due to strokes, heart attacks and suicides.

'Physical and mental limit'

NHK's chief has pledged to improve work conditions at the broadcaster.

"We are sorry that we lost an excellent reporter and take seriously the fact that her death was recognised as work-related," President Ryoichi Ueda said Thursday.

"We will continue to work for reform in cooperation with her parents," he told reporters.