Student rescued twice on Mount Fuji after going back for lost phone
A student was rescued twice in a week while climbing Japan's Mount Fuji after he returned to find his mobile phone.
The 27-year-old Chinese student was climbing Japan's tallest peak last week outside the official climbing season, when trails are closed because of the treacherous terrain.
He was first rescued by helicopter on Tuesday while on the Fujinomiya trail, around 3,000 metres above sea level. He was reportedly unable to make his way down the mountain after losing his crampons, traction devices attached to the bottom of climbing shoes.
Four days later, he returned to the mountain to retrieve belongings including his mobile phone, which he had left behind during the previous ascent, but began to suffer from altitude sickness and was again unable to climb down.
He was eventually carried down on a stretcher after another climber called the police at the Shizuoka prefecture.
Following his second rescue, Shizuoka police repeated the guidelines that strongly discourage climbing the mountain outside the official season, which runs from early July until early September.
Deteriorating trails
Some individuals on social media criticised the student for ignoring safety precautions and called on him to cover the costs of the two rescue missions.
The number of mountain climbing accidents in Japan hit a record high in 2023, with 3,126 cases reported – up 111 from the previous year, according to the National Police Agency.
Mount Fuji had the largest increase in accidents, with 97 people involved in incidents – a 90 per cent rise from the average of the previous five years.
Getting lost and falling accounted for two thirds of incidents, according to a report from Japan's National Police Agency.
Of the 1,127 trails that run through Japan's 34 national parks, nearly half have no one in charge of maintenance and preservation, according to a report released by the Environment Ministry of Japan in December 2023.
Kenji Kubota, a member of a trail study group of Japan, told China Daily: 'As the number of elderly climbers increases and the mountain trails continue to deteriorate, the number of lost climbers will rise, and the risk of slips and falls will also increase.'
Last year, officials introduced additional measures to ensure the safety of climbers. A 2,000 yen (£10) fee per hiker will be collected through a gate around halfway up the Yoshida Trail, the most popular on the mountain, to get to the summit. The number of climbers on that path will also be limited to 4,000 per day.
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