3 Japanese climbers killed in avalanche in Himalayas

TOKYO, Oct. 2 Kyodo - Three members of a Japanese climbing expedition aiming to traverse Himalayan peaks in China's Tibet Autonomous Region were killed in an avalanche Wednesday, the group's headquarters in Tokyo said Thursday.

The three had lost contact with the other climbers and were found dead at an
altitude of around 6,000 meters on Mt. Kula Kangri on Wednesday afternoon by
expedition leader Kazuhiro Takahashi and two other members of the party, the
headquarters said.
The three victims were identified as Yoshinobu Kato, 32, from Minami Alps,
Yamanashi Prefecture, Susumu Nakamura, 62, from Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, and
Satoshi Arimura, 27, from Chiba City.
The six-member party, accompanied by a doctor, left Japan in mid-September.
The party was planning to scale the 7,554-meter main peak of Mt. Kula Kangri.
If the summit was conquered, the party also planned to return to the main peak
after traversing the two lower peaks of the mountain in what would have been a
world's first.
Kenji Arimura, 56-year-old father of Satoshi, said in a phone interview that he
had a bad feeling about this expedition and he almost stopped his son from
going when he dropped him off at an airport on Sept. 14.
''I held back my words, 'don't go this time' as I was seeing him off,'' the
father said.
Families of the victims including Satoshi's brother Tadashi, 32, are planning
to leave for the site on Friday.
Nakamura, a cameraman, telecast live from the peak of Mt. Everest in 1988,
while Kato was an alpinist who conquered eight peaks higher than 8,000 meters.
==Kyodo