Photo/Illutration A man is believed to have been pushed off Mikunibashi bridge over the Kanzakigawa river in Osaka’s Yodogawa Ward on July 10. (Eriko Kai)

OSAKA--A man’s body was retrieved from the Kanzakigawa river here early on July 10, about two hours after police received an emergency call about someone being “pushed off a bridge” into the water.

The Osaka City Fire Department and the Yodogawa Police Station found the body at 3:20 a.m. about 20 meters from Mikunibashi bridge in Osaka’s Yodogawa Ward.

He was confirmed dead at 3:30 a.m., and an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death, police said.

The man was wearing a black T-shirt and gray shorts but not socks or shoes, they said.

The person who made the emergency 110 call at 1:05 a.m. said he was walking on a sidewalk on the south side of Mikunibashi bridge when he saw a man sitting on the 1.2-meter-high railing on the north side. Another man was standing and facing the sitting man, police quoted the witness as saying.

Later, the man on the railing fell into the river, and the other man fled southeast in a blue passenger car that had been parked nearby, they said.

Mikunibashi bridge can be crossed by both vehicles and pedestrians. It has only one sidewalk on the south side.

The bridge is located in a residential area about 1.6 kilometers northwest of JR Shin-Osaka Station.

(This article was written by Eriko Kai and Tatsuya Harada.)

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