A 67-year-old man died after falling about 20 meters into a river while clearing snow from a bridge in Uonuma, Niigata Prefecture, police said Sunday.
According to police, the incident occurred at around 11:45 a.m. Saturday. Sankei Shimbun reported that Takahiro Asa, a company executive, was clearing snow when he fell from Nakajuku Bridge on National Route 252 into the Suezawa River.
Asai was involved in snow removal work ordered by the prefecture to prevent disruption of services on the JR Tadami Line. He was using a snow shovel to clear about four meters of snow from the bridge, but apparently was not wearing a safety rope.
The cause of death was hemorrhagic shock, police said.
© Japan Today
7 Comments
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HopeSpringsEternal
Better be sure you know the area VERY well before clearing snow, as lots of ways to get hurt or worse. RIP.
grc
I’ve reading similar stories for some weeks now
OssanAmerica
There was 2m of snow on the bridge, and there were 8 people working on clearing it. The man is believed to have fallen through a snow/ice cornice. RIP.
Speed
Clearing snow has got to be the most dangerous job in Japan!
HopeSpringsEternal
Interesting, everyone above made reasonable comments and everyone was DOWN voted.
Odd, given subject matter is one we should all agree = danger of snow removal.
Record snowfall in Japan is no joke, even if some insist it's global warming!
R_R
so I don’t want to live in snow country.