Julian Ryall
in Tokyo
30 September 2024 1:58pm
Drone patrols have been launched over a sprawling forest on the slopes of Japan’s Mount Fuji that has become notorious for suicides.
Alarmed at a resurgence in people taking their lives in Aokigahara Forest, also known as the “sea of trees”, the Yamanashi regional government has deployed unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out sweeps of the 14-square-mile forest.
Made by Tokyo-based company JDrone, larger models are equipped with cameras and infrared sensors to detect people beneath the dense canopy and share that data with teams on the ground.
Smaller handheld units are then guided to the location of the heat signal and the search teams, through a camera and speaker, are able to communicate with anyone they find.
Working in unison, the large and small drones are then able to lead the search teams to the location of the individual.
According to the Yamanashi government, 182 bodies were discovered in the forest in both 2019 and 2020, rising to 192 in 2021 and 199 in 2022.
The total rose to 215 deaths in 2023, the Mainichi newspaper reported.
The first recorded suicide in Aokigahara was in the 1920s, when the son of a wealthy couple wanted to marry a waitress.
The man’s parents opposed the union, so the couple travelled to the forest to die together. The case attracted media attention and there were reports of similar suicide pacts over the following decades.
Things took a darker turn in 1970 after a popular romantic novel described the double suicide of lovers in the forest.
Japan’s economic problems of the 1990s saw another surge in deaths which coincided with the release of another book that described it as a peaceful place to die.
Many of the dead were businessmen who had lived well during the financial bubble years but who lost everything in the crash. Failure in business is considered a mark of shame in Japan.
With suicides increasing again, the regional government hopes the drone technology will enable them to intervene in some suicide attempts and convince others not to try to take their own lives in the forest.
Keiko Chiken, a spokesman for the local authority, told the Mainichi: “We want to dispel the image of Aokigahara as a famous suicide spot.”
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