Photo/Illutration Candies and snacks are offered on March 17 outside the Fukuoka hotel where a 4-year-old boy fell to his death. (Yukiko Nakamura)

FUKUOKA—A 4-year-old boy died after falling from a hotel here, authorities said, the latest accident involving an unattended small child.

According to police, the boy, who was traveling with his father from Nagoya, was found collapsed on a road in front of the hotel around 2 a.m. on March 15. He was confirmed dead at a hospital.

The father, 41, left their guest room on the third floor to go shopping after the boy fell asleep. When he returned, his son was gone.

Security camera footage showed the boy taking an elevator alone after his father left.

Police believe the boy fell from a 10th-floor balcony after opening an emergency door facing in the direction of the road where he was found, sources said.

Investigators are checking whether the door was locked at the time.

During the 31 years through 2023, 170 children 9 years old or younger fell to their deaths at their homes, according to a report released in June by the Consumer Affairs Agency’s Consumer Safety Investigation Commission.

Many of the accident victims were between the ages of 1 and 4.

The falls were from a balcony in 103 cases and from a window in 47.

Adults were at home in 34 percent of 91 balcony accidents and absent in 56 percent of them. For 42 window accidents, adults were at home in 81 percent of the cases and absent in 7 percent of them.

Masahiko Sakamoto, who heads the Division of Pediatrics at Saku Central Hospital in Nagano Prefecture, said the boy in the latest accident may have panicked after finding that his father was not in the room.

“Children sometimes panic when they realize that their parents have suddenly disappeared,” he said. “There is a possibility that he left the room to look for his father.”

Sakamoto said children aged 1 to 4 are not sufficiently capable of avoiding dangers and do not yet fully understand they will be injured if they fall from a high place.

“It is important not to leave children alone at home or at a hotel,” he said.

(This article was written by Tatsumi Yamamoto and Yukiko Nakamura.)

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