A school official responsible for an ill-fated mountaineering lesson at a ski resort in eastern Japan admitted Wednesday to a…
UTSUNOMIYA, Japan —
A school official responsible for an ill-fated mountaineering lesson at a ski resort in eastern Japan admitted Wednesday to a lapse in judgment in going ahead with the exercise that led to the deaths of seven students and a teacher in an avalanche.
“At the time we judged that it was absolutely safe, but now that this kind of incident occurred, it is something I must really regret,” Shuichi Inose, adviser to the mountaineering club at Otawara High School, said at the first press conference to be held following Monday’s disaster.
An avalanche that occurred on the mountain near the ski resort in the town of Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, on Monday morning killed the boys and their teacher, members of the school’s competitive mountaineering club. The students were undergoing training to learn how to walk through deep snow at the time of the avalanche.
Inose, the point man for mountaineering training sponsored by the prefectural high school athletic federation, said that while a plan to go mountain climbing was canceled due to the bad weather, he and two other teachers judged that it was possible to still conduct the alpine training.
