Tragedy in Japan: 10 of the 26 people on board the sunken tourist ship were confirmed dead

The Japanese Coast Guard said on Sunday that rescue helicopters found 10 of the 26 people, seven men and three women, from a tourist boat that sank in the icy waters of a national park in northern Japan, were confirmed dead.

The search for the others continues a day after the ship sent a distress call saying it was sinking.

The Ministry of Transport, for its part, launched an investigation into the ship's operator into its safety standards and its decision to take the tour despite bad weather on Saturday near the tip of the Shiretoko Peninsula. The location is known as a difficult place to maneuver ships due to its rocky coastline.

“We will thoroughly investigate what caused this situation and what type of safety oversight was involved to allow the tour in order to avoid 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 was related to two previous accidents involving the same boat last year, Saito said. The operator had been instructed to take steps to improve its safety following the incidents.

The Coast Guard confirmed that the same ship ran aground in the area last June, although no one was injured in that accident. In May, the ship collided with an object at sea, causing minor injuries to three passengers.

Rescuers intensified their search early Sunday and found four people near the tip of the peninsula and five more people in the same area a few hours later, but the coast guard said it could not confirm whether they were rescued alive. NHK public television said they were unconscious.

The coast guard said the ten people were found in the area near the tip of the peninsula north of where the ship sent a distress call on Saturday.

Images in NHK showed one of the rescued people arriving in a helicopter and being transferred to an ambulance on a stretcher, while rescuers held blue plastic shields for privacy.

A square-shaped orange salvage float with the name of the ship was also seen on the rocky coast.

The boat carrying 24 passengers, including two children, and two crew members disappeared after sending a distress call, saying it took water and was beginning to sink.

The first report of Sunday's rescue came after nearly 19 hours of intense search involving six patrol boats, several planes and divers. The Coast Guard said the search continued overnight and has since expanded, with local fishing and tourism boats joining the efforts, while the Self-Defense Force sent a destroyer and three aircraft.

The 19-ton Kazu 1 made an emergency call on Saturday afternoon, saying that the ship's bow had flooded and that it was beginning to sink and tilt, as it traveled off the western coast of the Shiretoko Peninsula on the northern island of Hokkaido, the coast guard said.

Since then, the tourist ship has lost contact, according to the coast guard. Sixteen people are still missing. The coast guard assured that the operator told them that everyone on the boat was wearing a life jacket.

Average sea temperatures in April in Shiretoko National Park are just above freezing.

An official of the ship's operator, Shiretoko Pleasure Cruise, said he could not comment because he had to respond 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 instructed officials “to do everything possible for the rescue.”

The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but experts suspect that there may be a safety negligence, and the ship ran aground and was damaged in rough seas in an area known for strong currents and a rocky coastline.

Strong waves and strong winds were observed in the area around noon, according to a local fishing cooperative. Japanese media reports said that fishing boats had returned to port before noon due to bad weather.

NHK said there was a warning for high waves up to 3 meters (9 feet).

The crew of a tour ship belonging to another operator told NHK that they warned about the rough sea when they saw the crew of Kazu 1 and told them not to go. He said that the same ship ran aground last year and suffered a crack in its bow.

Yoshihiko Yamada, professor of marine science at Tokai University, said the ship was likely to have run aground after it was thrown into high waves and damaged, flooded and likely sunk. A sightseeing boat of that size usually does not carry a lifeboat, and passengers could not possibly escape a rapidly sinking ship with its windows probably closed to protect them from strong winds.

In an interview with TBS television, Yamada said that there was also a slight possibility that the boat could have been hit by a whale.

The cold temperature and strong wind could cause hypothermia and put passengers in severe conditions to survive, according to Jun Abe, vice president of the Society for Aquatic Rescue and Survival Research. “It's a very serious condition, especially when they're wet,” Abe told TBS.

According to the operator's website, the tour lasts about three hours and offers panoramic views of the western coast of the peninsula and includes possible sightings of animals such as whales, dolphins and grizzly bears. The national park is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is famous as the southernmost region to see the sea ice drifting.

(with information from AP)

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