TOKYO –
Rescuers said 10 people pulled from the cold sea and rocky shores of Japan’s northern national park on Sunday died a day after a 26-boat cruise ship apparently sank in stormy waters, raising questions about why it was allowed to sail.
The search for the others is still ongoing after the boat sent a distress signal on Saturday afternoon that it was sinking. The location near Kashuni Waterfall is known as a difficult place to maneuver boats due to its rocky shore and high tide.
There were two crew and 24 passengers, including two children, on the 19-ton Kazu 1 when it ran into problems while traveling off the west coast of the Shiretoko Peninsula. The Coast Guard said the 10 victims – seven men and three women – were adults.
The Ministry of Transport has launched an investigation into the operator of the boat, which had two crashes last year. The ministry said it was investigating safety standards and the decision to conduct the tour despite the bad weather on Saturday.
The operator, Shiretoko Pleasure Cruise, has been instructed to take steps to improve its safety following earlier incidents in which it ran aground in June without causing injury, and another in May when three passengers suffered minor injuries when the boat collided with an object.
“We will investigate in depth what caused this situation and what kind of safety oversight was involved to resolve the tour to prevent another incident,” Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito, who visited the area on Sunday, told reporters.
After an intensive search involving six patrol boats, several planes and divers who spent the night, rescuers found four people near the top of the Shiretoko Peninsula earlier Sunday and later six more in the same area, about 14km (8.7 miles) north of where the boat sent a distress signal. Some of them were taken out of the sea, while others were taken to the rocky shore.
A life-saving square-shaped lifeboat with the boat’s name was also found near the rocks, the coast guard said.
Footage from the public television NHK shows that one of the victims arrived by helicopter and was transferred to an ambulance on a stretcher. Rescuers lifted blue plastic shields to protect the victim’s privacy.
The sightseeing ship made an emergency call early Saturday afternoon, saying its nose was flooded and sinking and tilting, the Coast Guard said. Contact with the boat has since been lost. The Coast Guard said the operator told them that everyone on the boat was wearing life jackets, but some of the victims were without them.
The average April sea temperature in Shiretoko National Park is slightly above zero, which experts say would cause hypothermia.
“This is a very serious condition, especially when wet,” Jun Abe, vice president of the Society for Water Rescue and Survival Research, told TBS TV.
Yoshihiko Yamada, a professor of marine science at Tokay University, said the boat may have been stranded after being thrown into big waves and damaged. A boat of this size usually does not carry a lifeboat, he said.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida cut short a two-day summit in Kumamoto, southern Japan, and returned to Tokyo. He told reporters early Sunday that he had instructed staff “to do everything possible to save”.
The reasons for the accident are being clarified, but officials and experts suspect it is negligence for safety.
High waves and strong winds were forecast when the boat left, and Japanese media reported that the fishing boats had returned to port before noon on Saturday due to bad weather.
A crew of a tourist boat belonging to another operator told NHK that he had warned the Kazu 1 crew about stormy seas and told them not to go. He also said the same boat ran aground last year and had a cracked nose.
Saturday’s tour was the first by the operator this season, and the incident just before the Golden Week celebrations in Japan, which begin in late April, could hamper local tourism, which fell during the pandemic. Japan is still largely closed to foreign visitors.
Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki told reporters Sunday that he plans to request security checks from prefecture tour operators before the holidays.
According to the operator’s website, the tour takes about three hours and offers scenic views of the west coast of the peninsula and the opportunity to see whales, dolphins and brown bears. The national park is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and is known as the southernmost region where floating sea ice can be seen.
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