THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
February 5, 2020 at 16:50 JST
ZUSHI, Kanagawa Prefecture--A landslide killed an 18-year-old as she walked by a hill that had been designated as a warning area for such a disaster.
According to the Zushi fire department, a person called the 119 emergency line around 8 a.m. on Feb. 5, saying someone had been buried under fallen earth and sand.
The victim was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said.
The hill that collapsed is located below an apartment building and faces a city road in a residential area around 2 kilometers northeast of JR Zushi Station.
The bottom 10 meters of the hill features a manmade face of packed stones looming vertically over a sidewalk. Above the stones are a metal fence and slope of natural earth and plants.
A 7- to 8-meter-high part of the slope collapsed, breaking through the fence and landing on the woman, officials said.
The Zushi city government said the site is private land that has been considered at risk of landslides.
A 76-year-old man living nearby said many students from a junior high school and high school walk along the road.
The Japan Meteorological Agency’s Yokohama Local Meteorological Office said an observation point in Fujisawa in the prefecture has not recorded any rainfall since Feb. 1.
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