THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
October 20, 2023 at 17:45 JST
An Asian black bear spotted in a mountainous area of Yamagata Prefecture (Provided by Yamagata prefectural police)
Bears attacked multiple people in and near Akita Prefecture on Oct. 19, including at a central city bus stop and the entrance to a hospital in heavily populated areas.
In Kita-Akita city six people, including several schoolchildren, were injured in bear attacks throughout the day.
The attacks started around 6:40 a.m., when four women were savaged one after another over a 40-minute period, leading to multiple hospitalizations for head and face injuries.
One of the victims, an 83-year-old woman, had to be flown by helicopter to a university hospital in Akita city due to blood loss and severe wounds, including broken bones in her chest and hip.
About 20 minutes after that attack, the bear appeared at a bus stop and bit a first-year senior high school girl on her arm.
Three of the attacks occurred in a business district near the JR Takanosu Station where retail outlets, homes and a hospital are located.
Later in the day, a 14-year-old junior high school girl was attacked by a bear as she was going home from school. She suffered injuries to her head, neck and knees.
Police believe that the five victims in the morning were attacked by the same animal.
Just over the prefectural border in Hachimantai, Iwate Prefecture, a man and woman were attacked by a bear while picking mushrooms in a mountainous area.
The woman was killed, and her body was found in a police search of the area.
The man, a resident of nearby Kazuno, Akita Prefecture, in his 70s, suffered injuries to his head but managed to escape to safety and call the police.
He said the bear had mauled his female companion, and although he had tried to help her, he was unable to rescue her from the bear.
Yet another bear was spotted in a residential area in Yurihonjo, Akita Prefecture, that same day.
A police officer eventually found the animal in the windbreak room of a nearby hospital. The area was sealed off and local government officials captured the animal. No one was injured.
According to prefectural police, as of noon on Oct. 19, 51 people have been attacked by bears in Akita Prefecture this year.
This is more than double the previous record of 20 victims in 2017.
(Takashi Takizawa, Hiroaki Abe and Hideki Muroya contributed to this article.)
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
