A tourist boat with 26 crew and passengers including two children went missing on Saturday while on a tour around the scenic Shiretoko Peninsula on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido, the Japan Coast Guard said.
The KAZU I reported to the coast guard it was taking on water around 1.15pm local time, and then told its operator that it was tilting 30 degrees around 3pm before losing contact, the coast guard said.
Twenty-two adult passengers and two children were aboard the boat along with two crew members, officers said.
The coast guard, which dispatched a helicopter and patrol boats to the site near the peninsula, said it had not found the boat nor the people on board as of 9pm, adding that their fate remains unknown.
It subsequently asked the Air Self-Defense Force to join in the search-and-rescue operation and the request was accepted, the coast guard said.
In Tokyo, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism set up a task force on the Hokkaido accident.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed cabinet members to “do everything in their power to save lives”, a government official said.
According to the regional coast guard station in Abashiri, the KAZU I ran aground in shallow water shortly after leaving port in June last year. No one was injured in that accident.
The latest incident occurred while the boat was cruising off Kashuni Falls, a famous scenic site near the tip of the Shiretoko Peninsula, part of which has been designated as a World Natural Heritage site.
High waves and strong winds were observed in the area around noon, according to the local fisheries cooperative. Its fishing boats returned to port before noon because of the bad weather, it said.
The peninsula in the northeast of Hokkaido is known as a popular destination for spotting drift ice and was designated as a World Natural Heritage site in 2005. It is a habitat for many rare species of animals and plants.
The boat can accommodate as many as 65 people, according to the website of its operator.
