AP – A tour boat with 26 people aboard was missing in rough and cold waters off northern
Japan on Saturday after issuing a distress call and reporting to be sinking, the coast guard
said.
No survivors have been found after more than 10 hours of an intense search involving six
patrol boats, five aircraft and divers. The coast guard said it will continue with the search
through the night.
The 19-ton Kazu 1 made an emergency call in early afternoon, saying the ship’s bow had
flooded and was beginning to sink and tilt while it was travelling off the western coast of
Shiretoko Peninsula in the northern island of Hokkaido, the coast guard said.
The tour boat has since lost contact, according to the coast guard. It said the boat was
carrying 24 passengers, including two children, and two crew.
Average April sea temperatures in Shiretoko National Park are just above freezing.
An official of the vessel’s operator, Shiretoko Pleasure Cruise, said he could not comment as
he had to respond to calls from worried families of the passengers.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was attending a two-day water summit in Kumamoto in
southern Japan, was cancelling his program for Sunday and was set to return to Tokyo to deal
with the missing boat, the NHK public broadcaster reported.
High waves and strong winds were observed in the area around noon, according to a local
fisheries cooperative. Japanese media reports said fishing boats had returned to port before
noon because of the bad weather.
NHK said there was a warning for high waves of up to 3 meters (9 feet) high.
Yoshihiko Yamada, a Tokai University marine science professor, said the boat was likely to
have run aground after it was tossed around in high waves and damaged, flooded and
probably sank.
A tour boat of that size usually does not carry a life boat, and passengers possibly could not
jump out of a rapidly sinking vessel with its windows probably closed to shield them from
strong winds.
The cold temperature and strong wind could cause hypothermia and put the passengers in
severe conditions for survival, according to Jun Abe, vice chairman of the Society of Water
Rescue and Survival Research. “It’s a very severe condition especially when they are wet,”
Abe told TBS.
