News On Japan

Sumo wrestler tests positive for coronavirus

Apr 11, 2020 (NHK) - Japan's professional sumo association has reported the first case of coronavirus in one of its wrestlers.

The wrestler belongs to a lower division.

The Japan Sumo Association says he tested positive on Friday, two days after being admitted to hospital in Tokyo.

It says the wrestler developed a fever last Saturday and now has symptoms such as coughing, fatigue and breathing difficulties.

His stable has suspended training sessions and banned its other wrestlers from going outside. None of them are said to feel unwell.

The sumo association says it will look into the infected wrestler's recent activity.

The spread of the coronavirus last week forced the association to postpone the third of the year's six regular competitions by two weeks. It is now scheduled to start on May 24.

The association says it may hold the event without spectators or even cancel it, depending on future developments over the virus.

The group's public affairs director, Shibatayama, said it will continue with preparations for the May event, but indicated it will have to discuss which option to take in light of the increasingly tense situation.

News On Japan
POPULAR NEWS

Typhoon No. 26 (Surigae) remained very strong as it moved northeast near the Daito Islands on September 28, bringing the threat of violent winds, high waves and torrential rain, with the storm located approximately 130 kilometers northwest of Minamidaito Island at 5 a.m. and moving northeast at 15 kilometers per hour ahead of an expected approach to the southern Izu Islands on Thursday, October 1.

Yokozuna Onosato captured his sixth career championship at the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament on September 27, defeating Ukrainian ozeki Aonishiki in a winner-takes-all showdown at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan to finish the 15-day competition with 12 wins and three losses, ending a year-long title drought after a dramatic final weekend.

A fire broke out at the observation deck of Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER in central Nagoya on Saturday, prompting 30 visitors to evacuate, although no injuries were reported.

Japan's teenage skateboarders delivered two gold medals and two bronze medals on September 25, with 15-year-olds Mizuho Hasegawa and Ian Nagahara winning the women's and men's park competitions at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

A major traffic accident involving 10 vehicles, including trucks and passenger cars, left one man seriously injured and nine others with minor injuries on the Daini Shinmei Road in Kobe on September 24, forcing the closure of part of the expressway.

MEDIA CHANNELS
         

MORE Society NEWS

A 25-year-old father has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly throwing his two young daughters from the sixth-floor balcony of an apartment building in Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, in the early hours of September 26, with police investigating whether a dispute between the suspect and his wife was behind the incident.

A 76-year-old man was arrested on September 27 on suspicion of arson after a fire destroyed approximately 560 square meters of a wooden apartment building in Osaka's Higashiyodogawa Ward, prompting the dispatch of 52 fire engines and taking around nine hours to extinguish.

Princess Aiko, the only daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, attended the opening ceremony of the World Congress of Medical Laboratory Science in Chiba, where she expressed condolences to victims of recent natural disasters and called for a swift recovery in affected areas.

A major traffic accident involving 10 vehicles, including trucks and passenger cars, left one man seriously injured and nine others with minor injuries on the Daini Shinmei Road in Kobe on September 24, forcing the closure of part of the expressway.

Police in Tokyo's Shibuya district are dealing with a steady stream of thefts, drunken altercations and late-night accidents, including a 17-year-old boy who stole a sleeping man's bag on a whim, a dispute outside a karaoke bar and an injured man who lost his memory after a night of drinking.

Two men robbed a man in his 30s of a bag containing 1 million yen in cash and his shoes in Osaka City before dawn on September 24, leaving him with minor injuries after pushing him to the ground.

Police in Yamagata Prefecture are working to identify a body found on the coast of a remote island on September 23, the 19th day since a 6-year-old boy went missing in Sakata, after discovering that the body was dressed in clothing similar to the Spider-Man outfit the child was wearing when he disappeared.

An emu that escaped from the home of a traveling zoo operator was captured after wandering through a residential neighborhood in Moriyama, Shiga Prefecture, on September 23, following a police report from a resident who mistook the bird for an ostrich.