Thursday February 16, 2012

JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

Trackers find trail of missing U.S. poet on island

National May. 07, 2009 - 06:22AM JST ( 15 )

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15 Comments

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timorborderMay. 07, 2009 - 09:23AM JST

Sounds like somebody somewhere stuffed up. Did the Japanese police use dogs? Do they know how to use tracking dogs? Perhaps this guy did a Sylvia Plath?
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SamuraiikiMay. 07, 2009 - 10:32AM JST

By yourself in a volcano? No way.
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AltriaMay. 07, 2009 - 10:36AM JST

Active volcano

Spouts fire like a red dragon

It burns it burns arrrghhhhh
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jkoffmanMay. 07, 2009 - 10:43AM JST

timorborder - Did the Japanese police use dogs? Do they know how to use tracking dogs?

Maybe it's something I seen on Bonanza or some other spaghetti western, gunpowder was used to over power a tracking dogs smell and volcanoes have high levels of sulfur. So maybe tracking dogs have no use around volcanoes and the nutty professor should have been with a guide in these hostile areas. Anyhow I hope he's found safe.
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LostinNagoyaMay. 07, 2009 - 11:50AM JST

Also Japanese rescue teams are criticised by specialists for not working during night-time.
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nandakandamandaMay. 07, 2009 - 12:19PM JST

It was getting dark so the search was suspended for the day... by the American team. (lostinN)

My guess is gas. You get a blowhole in a narrow ravine and you would never see it coming.
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LostinNagoyaMay. 07, 2009 - 12:26PM JST

nanda: point taken. But I was thinking of the previous 9 days when Japanese RTs found nothing.
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KaptainKichigaiMay. 07, 2009 - 12:30PM JST

How many resources does one man's folly deplete? how much time and money wasted because of foolishness?
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NuckinFutzMay. 07, 2009 - 12:32PM JST

Having had some experience with Japanese search and rescues in the Hakkoda Mountains (Aomori Prefecture) I can see why the family called in American trackers! Japanese police and fire rescue teams spend more time organizing themselves and trying to figure out who's in charge than they do searching. When they do search they stick to trails, don't use dogs, and only search in the "easy to get to places" so they can be home before dark.

Believe it or not in one search I participated in (with Americans, not Japanese searchers) the police brought in a helicopter but weren't allowed to use it to ferry searchers to a mountain because "they aren't allowed to land in a national park" without permission from the governor! I thought it was a joke but they were serious!

I hope they find the guy okay(and slap him for heading off alone into such terrain!)
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sydenhamMay. 07, 2009 - 02:55PM JST

Must be the fault of the Japanese searchers that this guy went off by himself on a volcano.
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nandakandamandaMay. 07, 2009 - 09:45PM JST

"Kuzuhara said the mountain has no hiking trail, and the locals hardly go there."

Maybe the locals know something that has been passed down. In ancient times, maybe people went missing and never came back...
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space_monkeyMay. 07, 2009 - 09:50PM JST

I think the locals sacrificed him to the volcano gods!!
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nandakandamandaMay. 07, 2009 - 10:27PM JST

So that was yesterday. What happened today, I wonder? Sacrifices to appease the gods first?
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nandakandamandaMay. 07, 2009 - 10:46PM JST

If you read the tourist guide it says you can go up and down in a day, but there is a warning that it is an active volcano & to check with the earthquakes agency first. There is a link, and the activity level is at 2 right now. http://homepage2.nifty.com/erabu/play2.htm#1