TOKYO — A father in Japan left his 7-year-old son waiting alone for hours on Mount Fuji while he continued his climb toward the summit, drawing a stern warning from the authorities, police and local media reported.

The boy was found alone on a hiking route on Thursday and taken into police custody, a local police officer in the Shizuoka region told AFP on Saturday.

The child had told his father he was tired at the mountain's sixth station, which sits at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters (6,500 feet), local broadcaster SBS TV reported. Because his older brother had already gone on ahead, the father told the 7-year-old to "wait here" and carried on hiking with his other son, according to SBS.

TV Asahi, citing staff at a mountain hut who alerted police to the boy's presence, reported that the child was left to wait for eight hours with only snacks and a soft drink — and no money.

Officers contacted the father while he was at the eighth station and handed the boy back to him once he returned down the trail.

The police officer told AFP that the man was given a telling-off for leaving the child behind. The father reportedly apologized to police, acknowledging that what he had done was careless. Under Japanese law, abandonment of a child in need of protection by a person responsible for their care is a criminal offense, and cases involving minors left unattended can also be referred to local child consultation centers, the welfare offices that handle follow-up for children at risk. Authorities did not indicate whether welfare officials would be involved in this instance.

Mount Fuji, Japan's highest peak at 3,776 meters (12,388 feet), is an active stratovolcano on the main island of Honshu, straddling the border between Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures, and has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage cultural site since 2013. The mountain's climbing season generally runs from early July to early September and draws hundreds of thousands of hikers in a typical year — a volume that prompted both prefectures to introduce entry fees and daily climber caps on their busiest routes in 2024 to manage overcrowding. Ascent routes are marked by numbered stations from the base up to the 10th station at the summit, with mountain huts positioned along the trails offering food, rest and shelter to climbers. Conditions on the upper slopes are considerably colder than at the base, and the weather there is known to change rapidly even during the summer climbing months; acute altitude sickness, which can begin to affect hikers at elevations above roughly 2,000 to 2,500 meters, is another hazard that mountain authorities warn climbers about.

Source: The Korea Times