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Woman killed by avalanche while snowboarding in Gunma

9 Comments

A 31-year-old woman was killed when she was engulfed by an avalanche while she was snowboarding in Gunma Prefecture on Wednesday.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 1:15 p.m. on Mt Maehotaka near Katashina village. Fuji TV reported that the victim, Shibuki Koike, and three others, including a guide, were snowboarding outside the designated area when they were hit by the avalanche.

Although the ski resort’s patrol team managed to rescue Koike and the local fire department provided emergency transport to the hospital, she was pronounced dead on arrival.

No one else in the group was injured. Police said the group had been snowboarding from about 11 a.m. and went off the designated course at around 1 p.m.

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9 Comments
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snowboarding outside the designated area

they do designate them for a reason

6 ( +8 / -2 )

The story doesn't say whether the guide was a friend or someone employed by her, but this shouldn't happen with a guide around. A number of guides do die in the mountains, but usually when they are off doing their own thing. I hope that is what happened here. It shouldn't happen for a customer on a guided tour.

Yesterday saw a blast of high-temp sticky snow fall on mountains that have been through repeated melt-freeze. Had they referred to it, the avalanche advisory for Minakami was "considerable" for tree line and above. You have to be careful in those conditions.

RIP

4 ( +4 / -0 )

so easily preventable. just follow the damn signs and dont get too adventurous.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

https://japan.mb4uli.com/national-woman-killed-by-avalanche-while-snowboarding-in-gunma/ It's only been a few weeks since the other avalanche fatality involving an irresponsible guide, so I think there are regulations being exploited in this area. This one is going to hurt the resort financially once the family gets over this and sues the resort for having an irresponsible guide that risks the lives of patrons. Will happen again though.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Peter :That link adds nothing, it's verbatim the same as this article. Guides are very often hired privately with absolutely no connection to the resorts. Perhaps wait until you know the details first or use a few conditionals in your assertions.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I pretty much think it's in the best interest of the resort to know who is guiding and where they are taking patrons for this very reason. I think the owner of a rifle club would want to know where everybody is shooting don't you think? or you would have rogue instructors taking patrons away from the range for better thrill of shooting crows or live targets instead of boring targets or in this case boring ski runs everyone uses so to speak. So you see, just because the guides/instructors have a license to use the facility, doesn't mean they have a free pass to disobey safety regulations/guidelines put in place because they can't get fired/penalized.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

These people are employed as "Guides". It's up to you, whether you heed their advise.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@WA4TKG, that's ridiculous. "Guides are supposed to Guide as in "guidance" being the ones that know the area the patron doesn't. Their job is to show patrons around in an environment they aren't familiar with so they can see as much as they can in the short period they as well as keep them safe according to local laws as some countries have stricter laws than most. If your not going to listen to advise why employ a guide?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In Colorado in USA. internatiooonal competitions shhws are still on.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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