Gifu Prefectural Police headquarters (Mainichi/Hiroki Sameshima)

       GIFU -- The body of a man found in the mountains of central Japan's Gifu Prefecture on Oct. 11 has been identified as a councilor at the Cabinet Office's Minister Secretariat, local police announced on Oct. 24.

       Motohiro Sakata, a resident of Tokyo's Kita Ward, was found about 200 meters below the trail of Mount Kita-Hotaka in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, buried under several rocks each about 50 centimeters in diameter. The cause of death was multiple trauma. Police believe that Sakata may have been hit by falling rocks.

       According to Gifu Prefectural Police's Takayama Police Station, the 53-year-old senior bureaucrat entered the mountain area alone from Sept. 18 for a planned stay of three days and two nights. On Sept. 20, his wife reported to Nagano Prefectural Police that she could not reach him.

       Based on the location data from his cell phone, Sakata was found to be in the vicinity of Mount Kita-Hotaka, and a private contractor who had been searching for him at the request of his family found a body on Oct. 11 near Takidani cliff at an altitude of about 2,700 meters. Gifu Prefectural Police had been trying to identify the body.

       According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, at around 5:20 p.m. on Sept. 19, after Sakata entered the mountain, there was an earthquake in Takayama that measured 4 on the 7-point Japanese seismic intensity scale, but the causal relationship between the earthquake and his death is unknown.

       (Japanese original by Takuya Kurozume, Gifu Bureau)

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