Even if it means having to give up on climbing the mountain together, leaving a child behind is unacceptable
By Moses Okorie
Japanese police have reprimanded a 48-year-old father after he reportedly left his seven-year-old son alone on Mount Fuji for several hours with only a soft drink and a snack.
The boy was discovered sitting on a bench near the mountain’s sixth station in foggy and rainy conditions, at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres (6,500 feet).
According to reports, the father told the child to “wait here” after he complained of being tired before continuing the climb towards the summit with his older son.
Staff at a mountain hut later found the boy and alerted the police. Officers subsequently located the father between the seventh and eighth stations of the mountain, reportedly about three hours away from where the child had been left.
The boy was found alone at around 7:30 a.m. local time on Thursday and was said to have spent approximately eight hours waiting for his father to return.
When the father eventually came back down and was reunited with his son, police reportedly reprimanded him over the decision to leave the child unattended in potentially dangerous conditions.
“Even if it means having to give up on climbing the mountain together, leaving a child behind is unacceptable,” an officer reportedly told him, according to Japan Today.
The father is said to have apologised and described his decision as rash.
The family had reportedly been hiking along the Fujinomiya route, which begins at the mountain’s fifth station, an area accessible by public transport. Hiking guides estimate that reaching the summit from there takes about five hours, while the descent can take another three hours.
At 3,776 metres (12,389 feet), Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain and an active volcano located southwest of Tokyo. The iconic peak has recorded several climbing-related incidents in recent years.
In July, a 99-year-old woman was rescued after falling while attempting the climb and sustaining injuries to her hip and back.
In another incident last year, a 27-year-old university student who climbed Mount Fuji outside the official season was rescued twice within four days after returning to the mountain to search for a mobile phone he had lost.
Mount Fuji was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013 and is regarded as one of Japan’s three sacred mountains, alongside Mount Tate and Mount Haku.
The mountain attracts around 200,000 climbers annually, although authorities have introduced daily visitor limits on some routes in an effort to reduce overcrowding and improve safety.