TOKYO (AP) – The victims include hiking enthusiasts from a major insurance company. Members of a group of nature lovers studying wild plants. A construction manager who snapped about 100 photos – found on his scratched and dented camera – to show his wife what she was missing because she had to work that day.
More than 50 people died when Mount Ontake, a popular hiking destination in central Japan, erupted without warning on Sept. 27 in the country’s deadliest volcanic eruption since World War II.
Together, they paint a typical picture of weekend recreational hikers in Japan. A few children and senior citizens, but mostly middle-aged working people enjoying the first Saturday of the fall foliage season.
Most were between 30 and 59 years old, and lived within a few hours’ drive or train ride from the mountain. Three were children, and only five were 60 or older.
“The best season for the leaves just started, the weather was beautiful, it was the weekend, and it was lunchtime,” said Masahito Ono, a Nagano prefecture tourism official.