TOKYO – The Japan Coast Guard said on Sunday rescue helicopters found nine of the 26 people from a tour boat who had been missing in the frigid waters of northern Japan since the previous day, but their condition is unknown.
The Department for Transport, meanwhile, launched an investigation into the boat’s operator over its safety standards and its decision to run the tour despite inclement weather on Saturday.
“We will thoroughly investigate what caused this situation and what kind of safety oversight was required to enable the tour and prevent another accident,” Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito, who visited the area on Sunday, told reporters.
The ministry will also investigate whether or how Saturday’s accident is related to two previous accidents last year involving the same boat, Saito said. The operator had been instructed to take measures to improve its safety following the incidents.
The Coast Guard confirmed the same boat ran aground in the area last June, although no one was injured in that accident. In May, the boat collided with an object at sea, slightly injuring three passengers.
Rescuers intensified their search early Sunday and found four people near the tip of the Shiretoko Peninsula and a few hours later five others in the same area, but the Coast Guard said it could not confirm if they were rescued alive. Public broadcaster NHK TV said they were unconscious.
The Coast Guard said all nine people were found in the area near the tip of the peninsula north of where the boat sent out a distress call on Saturday. The place is known as a difficult place to maneuver boats because of its rocky coast.
Footage on NHK showed one of the rescued people arriving by helicopter and being carried on a stretcher to an ambulance while rescuers held up blue plastic privacy shields.
Also visible on the rocky shore was an orange square lifeguard with the boat’s name on it.
The boat, carrying 24 passengers, including two children, and two crew members, went missing after it sent a distress call saying it had taken on water and was beginning to sink.
The first report of the rescue on Sunday came after nearly 19 hours of an intense search involving six patrol boats, several planes and divers. The Coast Guard said the search continued throughout the night and has since widened, with local fishing and tour boats joining the effort, while the Self-Defense Force dispatched a destroyer and three planes.
The 19-ton Kazu 1 issued a distress call early Saturday afternoon, saying the ship’s bow had been flooded and it was beginning to sink and tilt as it passed the west coast of the Shiretoko Peninsula on the northern island of Hokkaido, the authorities said Coast Guard .
According to the Coast Guard, the excursion boat has now lost contact. Seventeen people are still missing. The Coast Guard said the operator told them everyone on the boat was wearing a life jacket.
Average April sea temperatures in Shiretoko National Park are just above freezing.
An official for the ship’s operator, Shiretoko Pleasure Cruise, said he could not comment because he was responding to calls from concerned passengers’ families.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was attending a two-day summit in Kumamoto, southern Japan, canceled his program for the second day and returned to Tokyo. He told reporters in the early hours of Sunday that he had instructed officers to “do whatever they can for the rescue.”
The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but experts suspect there was a safety glitch and the boat ran aground and was damaged in rough seas in an area known for strong currents and a rocky coastline.
High waves and strong winds were observed in the area around midday, according to a local fishing cooperative. According to Japanese media reports, fishing boats returned to the port before noon because of the bad weather.
NHK said there was a warning about high waves of up to 3 meters (9 feet).
A tour boat crew from another operator told NHK that when he spotted the Kazu 1 crew, he warned of rough seas and told them not to go. He said the same boat ran aground last year and suffered a crack in the bow.
Yoshihiko Yamada, a professor of marine sciences at Tokai University, said the boat likely ran aground after being tossed and damaged in high waves, flooded and likely to have sunk. A tour boat of this size does not usually carry a lifeboat, and passengers might not be able to escape a rapidly sinking ship whose windows are likely to be closed to protect them from high winds.
In an interview with TBS Television, Yamada said there was also a small possibility that the boat could have been struck by a whale.
The cold and high winds could cause hypothermia and put passengers in difficult survival conditions, according to Jun Abe, vice chairman of the Society of Water Rescue and Survival Research. “It’s a very severe condition, especially when they’re wet,” Abe told TBS.
According to the operator’s website, the tour lasts about three hours and offers scenic views of the west coast of the peninsula and includes potential sightings of animals such as whales, dolphins, and brown bears. The national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is famous for being the southernmost region where floating sea ice can be seen.