Teachers sentenced to prison following avalanche deaths in Japan

Lina PortmanMay 30, 2024

0 1 minute read

Three Japanese teachers were each sentenced Thursday to two years in prison for negligence during a 2017 mountaineering trip in which seven students were killed in an avalanche.

A spokesperson for a court in the central Tochigi region told AFP that the three former and current teachers had been found guilty of professional negligence resulting in injury or even death.

THE…

Three Japanese teachers were each sentenced Thursday to two years in prison for negligence during a 2017 mountaineering trip in which seven students were killed in an avalanche.

A spokesperson for a court in the central Tochigi region told AFP that the three former and current teachers had been found guilty of professional negligence resulting in injury or even death.

The avalanche triggered by heavy snow killed seven high school students and a teacher during a three-day expedition to Tochigi's Mount Chausu in March 2017.

The disaster also injured 40 other people on the mountain located 120 kilometers north of Tokyo.

The question throughout the trial was whether the avalanche could have been predicted.

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The Utsunomiya District Court ruled Thursday that this was “sufficiently foreseeable” and faulted the defendants for failing to carry out proper research, according to broadcaster TBS.

Prosecutors argued that the magnitude of the snowfall should have served as a warning to teachers, saying the students could have been saved if better safety measures had been followed, several other media outlets reported.

The defense asked for the teachers' acquittal, arguing that they had no way of predicting the snowslide.

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In October 2017, a third-party committee investigating the tragedy blamed it in part on complacency and a “lack of crisis management awareness” on the part of supervisors.

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