Oct 30, 2019 (soranews24.com) - Last words before slipping are 'This part is dangerous.'
On the morning of October 28, a young Japanese man began a live stream on Japanese video-sharing site Niconico. Titled “Going to Mt. Fuji!â€, the video chronicled his climb up Japan’s most famous natural landmark.
As shown in the clip below (posted to Twitter by @ponapona979), in the late afternoon the man, a student on a gap year after failing to get into a law program, was nearing the peak, with only a handful of steps left to go. At the 10-second mark in the clip, however, he says “This part is dangerous,†as the snowy path becomes slippery. “Can’t be helped, though,†he continues, and immediately after, disaster strikes.
“Slipping,†the man tensely says as he loses his footing and begins sliding down the side of the mountain. He then apparently hits a bump and begins rolling, with the camera flipping over multiple times until the audio cuts out and the video stops on a frozen frame, with the camera seemingly damaged enough that it can no longer record or broadcast.
A Niconico user who was watching the live stream contacted the authorities, and a fire department search-and-rescue helicopter was dispatched from Yamanashi (one of the prefectures which borders Mt. Fuji at its base). However, the helicopter was unable to find the fallen hiker, and a 10-person on-foot mountain rescue team made up of Shizuoka Prefectural Police members, which set out on the morning of the 29th, is also yet to find any trace of the man.
