10 climbers die on Hokkaido mountains+

SAPPORO, July 17 Kyodo -
Ten climbers have died on two mountains in the Taisetsu mountain range in
central Hokkaido since Thursday, many of them having frozen in bad weather,
police said Friday.

In what the Japan Mountaineering Association describes as one of the worst
summer climbing accidents in Japan, at least six of the 10 were found to have
died of hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature.
A few other climbers were also hospitalized for mild hypothermia that is not
life-threatening, as weather conditions around the range were unstable Thursday
with strong wind and rain, the police and local meteorological observatory
said.
There are few mountain lodges in the area, and the victims are believed to have
exhausted themselves in the poor weather, prompting the police to investigate
the possibility that professional negligence by climbing tour operators and
guides resulted in the deaths.
The 10 comprise Atsuko Onoue, 64, from Hyogo Prefecture, whose body was
recovered Friday morning on the 2,052-meter Mt. Biei, eight of 19 climbers in a
group on the 2,141-meter Mt. Tomuraushi, and another man who was climbing the
mountain alone, according to the police.
Onoue was on a tour organized by an Ibaraki Prefecture-based company called
Office Compass with two other women aged 55 and 62 and three male mountain
guides, and had planned to traverse the Taisetsu mountain range from Thursday
to Sunday. The other five were safely rescued.
The eight dead on Mt. Tomuraushi were on a tour arranged by Tokyo-based
Amusement Travel that comprised 15 people from eight prefectures and four staff
members who are mostly in their 50s and 60s, and were to go across the mountain
range for a 41.5-kilometer trek from Tuesday to Thursday.
Of the other 11 on the tour, five were found conscious and picked up by
helicopters, five went down the mountain by themselves and one was found safe
in the mountains, according to the police.
According to the Hokkaido police and the travel agency, strong winds and rain
forced the party to be disorganized during a scheduled 11-hour journey. A
66-year-old male climber who walked right after the party on the Mt. Tomuraushi
trail said the rain had abated before noon but the winds remained strong
throughout the day, forcing him to move ahead on all fours near the mountain
top.
Seven of the eight dead on Mt. Tomuraushi have been identified as of Friday
night -- Takashi Kimura, 66, Natsue Kawasumi, 68, Hisako Mita, 62, and Tamiko
Takeuchi, 69, all from Aichi Prefecture, Keiko Oka, 64, from Okayama
Prefecture, and Hiroshi Kikkawa, 61, and Suzuko Uehara, 62, both from Hiroshima
Prefecture.
The tour ranked second in the organizer's four-grade difficulty scale and
participants were limited to people up to 70 years old with experience of
climbing, the Tokyo travel agency said, adding no accidents had occurred during
the previous 17 times that the tour had been staged.
''I apologize with my whole heart for the loss of precious lives,'' Amusement
Travel President Seiichi Matsushita, 50, said Friday afternoon, appearing at a
police station after apparently being questioned.
In a probe into what caused the accident, the police are currently questioning
organizers and survivors on a voluntary basis.
The man who was climbing alone is from Ibaraki Prefecture, and was found
unconscious on Mt. Tomuraushi early Friday and later confirmed dead.
Yoshio Ogata, a senior official at the Japan Mountaineering Association, warned
of the danger of climbers suffering hypothermia at a time when mountaineering
is becoming popular among the country's middle aged and elderly.
''I guessed the overall schedule of the tours might have affected their
decisions on whether to continue,'' Ogata said. ''But I'm wondering why the
guide moved on with their treks. You lose your strength if you get wet in
winds...and you don't normally realize yourself that you're getting
hypothermia.''
==Kyodo