TRAVEL

An avalanche has killed three bathers at a hot spring in northern Japan, where heavy snow also has paralyzed traffic and forced schools to close. The deadly avalanche hit Thursday in Akita. Officials say snowstorms have battered coastal cities along the Sea of Japan and large parts of northern Japan since late last year. Some areas have received more than twice as much snow as normal. The snow has played a role in 56 deaths, and more than 750 injuries, since November. Most of those killed fell from rooftops while shoveling snow. (AP)

This winter's heavier snowfall has seen more than 500 people across seven prefectures die or become injured in snow-related accidents, including cases in which they had been trying to remove snow, it has been learned. People are trying to remove snow themselves using shovels and other tools because of delays in municipal-led snow removal. The delays have been caused by a shortage of dump trucks--many of which are being used in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake for reconstruction work--to transport snow. According to data compiled by the Akita, Aomori, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Toyama and Yamagata prefectural governments, the death toll from such snow-related accidents had reached 31 as of Wednesday, while 479 people had sustained injuries. In Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, 10 workers fell at a construction site while clearing snow on Thursday, six of them sustaining injuries. (Yomiuri)

The Yamanashi Prefectural Government plans to raise an endangered deepwater salmon species discovered in 2010 in Lake Saiko at the foot of Mount Fuji - 70 years after it died out in its original habitat 500 km northeast in Akita Prefecture's Lake Tazawa. Yamanashi Prefectural Fisheries Technology Center culturists will gill-net the "kunimasu" species in the 2.1-sq.-km lake, collecting sperm from males and eggs from females for fertilization at a hatchery in February and March - peak mating season - said Kiyoshi Mitsui, the center's director. (Japan Times)

The weekend bust of two popular nightclubs within the Gas Panic chain was due to the presence of undesirable foreigners, reports Nikkan Gendai (Nov. 30). Early Sunday morning, Tokyo Metropolitan Police entered clubs Gas Panic Bar and Club 99 in the Roppongi entertainment district and arrested managers Hidenori Wakita, 36, and Nishihata, 35, for allowing dancing after 1 a.m. - a violation of the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses. A journalist who covers the adult entertainment industry says the chain of foreigner-frequented bars is popular for those on low budgets, but in recent times police have been taking notice of trouble. (Tokyo Reporter)

Tokyo Metropolitan Police raided two popular nightclubs within the Gas Panic chain in the Roppongi entertainment district early Sunday morning for improper licensing and took two employees into custody, reports TV Asahi (Nov. 28). Police arrested managers Hidenori Wakita, 36, and Nishihata, 35, for allowing dancing at clubs Gas Panic Bar and Club 99 after 1 a.m. - a violation of the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses. (Tokyo Reporter)

All he needed was one strong swing. After the inning, he ended up coming out of the dugout to wave his hat to the excited fans. Pinch hitter Nobuhiko Matsunaka smacked the first pitch from Seibu reliever Kazuhisa Makita into the right-field stands for a game-insuring grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning to guide the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks to a 7-2 victory over the Seibu Lions in Game 2 of the Pacific League Climax Series final stage on Friday night. (Japan Times)

On October 30, the central police station in Akita City informed a 31-year-old high school teacher from Sendai City he was under arrest on a charge of theft. Tokyo Sports (Nov. 1) reports that the police took action after a teenaged "delivery health" (out-call sex service) worker charged the man from stealing 16,000 yen from her handbag last August, after he had phoned a service and requested she be dispatched to his hotel room in Akita City for a sensual sex session. (Tokyo Reporter)

A puppy scratches at a window in a pitiful attempt to escape the horror which is about to unfold. Minutes later the pedigree Japanese Akita is among a large group of dogs led into a "dream box", execution chamber which will be pumped full of carbon dioxide. As the deadly gas slowly fills the box it takes 10 minutes for the barking inside to die down into heart-breaking whimpers. And as the dogs writhe in agony, it takes another 20 minutes before their twitching bodies are finally still. The animals have just become the latest batch of the 200,000 cats and dogs which will be gassed to death in Japan this year. The euphemistically named dream boxes where they spend their final moments are fully mechanised gas chambers housed in health centres called hokenjos. There are 108 in Japan and they each kill an average of 550 animals a day. (mirror.co.uk)

A study of alcohol, sleep and heart rate variability found that alcohol interferes with the restorative functions of sleep, Japanese and U.S. researchers say. "Alcohol affects overall sleep architecture," Dr. Yohei Sagawa of Akita University School of Medicine in Japan says. "Normally, during physiologic nocturnal sleep in humans, the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for 'rest-and-digest' activities, is dominant over the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for stimulating activities. We wanted to investigate how alcohol may change this complementary relationship." (UPI)

Prices for rice harvested in 2010 in Japan have been rising sharply in trading between wholesalers as the nuclear crisis in Fukushima Prefecture has prompted them to increase inventories out of concern about possible supply shortages, according to market watchers. Market research firm Rice Databank Co. said the Akitakomachi brand of rice produced in Akita Prefecture was quoted at ¥18,700 per 60 kg last Wednesday, up 49.6 percent from its high of ¥12,500 in the Kanto region on March 9, two days before the quake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. (Japan Times)

Governors criticized the central government Tuesday for its poor handling of rebuilding areas hit hard by the March earthquake and tsunami and the protracted Fukushima nuclear crisis. Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada, who chairs the National Governors' Association, told a meeting of the association in Akita, "In times like this, local governments should ask what this country stands on, while taking account of voices on the ground." (Kyodo)

A government employee left his office in a bit of a tight squeeze late last month after he was caught doing some squeezing of his own, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (July 14). On June 24, heavy rain resulted in mudslides and blackouts throughout Akita Prefecture, which prompted local governments to order the evacuation of roughly 3,000 households. But hampering these efforts was the fact that three days before one of the key personnel of the Akita branch of the Ministry of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Yoshihisa Sato, 38, was arrested for molesting a call-girl. (Tokyo Reporter)

More than 2.4 billion yen in bills and coins soiled or damaged by the March 11 tsunami has been brought to Bank of Japan branches in the hard-hit Tohoku region to be replaced, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. This figure is triple the 800 million yen exchanged for undamaged currency in the six months after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake--an indication of the sheer extent of the damage wrought by the March 11 disaster. As of last Tuesday, 320,000 damaged banknotes and 930,000 coins had been brought to Bank of Japan branches in Sendai, Fukushima, Aomori and Akita, and a temporary branch set up in Morioka. (Yomiuri)

Despite struggling with recovery and reconstruction efforts following the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, the Tohoku region will go ahead with its summer festival program this year. Some of the festivals will be downscaled due to the impact of the March 11 disaster, organizers said, but added they want to attract as many tourists as possible to the region also affected by the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Tohoku's three big summer festivals--the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri, Akita Kanto Matsuri and Sendai Tanabata Matsuri--will go ahead as per usual years. (Yomiuri)