At least one person died climbing Mount Fuji days before the official start of the climbing season, and three bodies were found on the mountain, the police and local media said. Among them was a professional rock climber, Keita Kurakami, according to Patagonia, which he was an ambassador for. He lost consciousness while ascending the mountain, Japan’s tallest, on Wednesday and was pronounced dead at a hospital, local police said, according to public broadcaster NHK.
The three bodies were discovered about three-quarters of the way up the 12,400-foot mountain, all near its crater but in different locations, local police said Wednesday, according to NHK. It is unclear when the bodies were found. All three are thought to have been climbers who ascended separately, the broadcaster said.
For all of last year, seven Mount Fuji deaths were reported. The police in Shizuoka prefecture, where some trails to the summit start, started searching after a woman in Tokyo reported on Sunday that she had lost contact with her 53-year-old husband who had gone to climb Mount Fuji, the police said. He left Friday evening and on Saturday sent his family a photo taken near the summit but then fell out of contact, NHK said.
The man was identified as one of the dead, said Eriko Takahashi, the Shizuoka police department spokesperson, in an interview Thursday. The police were still identifying the two other bodies but suspected they were a man in his 30s who was reported missing in December and a man .
