Murakami reference?

Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, chapter 8 (p. 70 in my Vintage International edition): "At the end of the last century, a similar incident occurred in Australia. Outside of Adelaide fifteen teenage girls from a private girls' school were on an outing when all of them lost consciousness, and then regained it. Again there were no injuries, no after-effects. It ended up classified as a case of heatstroke, but all of them had lost consciousness and recovered it at nearly the same time, and nobody showed symptoms of heatstroke, so the real cause remains a mystery." Given the number of things that match PaHR (including Irma's lack of injuries), I wonder if Murakami was referencing PaHR or if in fact the incident mentioned actually happened and if (though there are no disappearances in what Murakami relates) that could've inspired PaHR (the film-makers did the research and could find no disappearances that matched what happens in the novel, but they might've missed an incident with no disappearances or deaths).
Can anyone shed any light on this? Maybe it's a fluke but it's interesting to think about.