Photo/Illutration A bear is spotted on the premises of the Hara-Kei Memorial Museum in Morioka on Oct. 20. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Bear attacks and encounters in northern Japan on Oct. 20 caused minor wounds to four people, seriously injured one man, and threw a scare into local communities.

Shortly after 5 a.m. on Oct. 20, a 63-year-old man called police, saying he had been clawed in the back by an animal near JR Yuzawa Station in Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, prefectural police said.

As police were responding to the report, another man in in his 40s or 50s told them that a bear had bitten him on the left arm in an adjacent district across the railway.

At 5:45 a.m., police received a report that a bear had attacked a 70-year-old hotel employee in the parking lot of a nearby hotel. He reportedly suffered a broken clavicle in the mauling.

Then, at 6:20 a.m., a 65-year-old man told police that a bear bit his right thigh after he opened the entrance of his home in the same area.

The bear remained inside the man’s home and would not leave.

In Tateyama, Toyama Prefecture, a woman in her 80s was hit from behind by a bear at a garbage collection site at around 6:30 a.m.

According to the town, the woman was scratched on her left shoulder and right lower back, but the injuries were not life-threatening.

In a central residential area of Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, a bear that had entered the premises of the Hara-Kei Memorial Museum was captured shortly after 3 p.m.

A staff member of a nearby nursery school saw the bear run through the field behind the school, climb over a fence and enter the museum premises.

No injuries were reported.

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