Man, 2 girls safely rescued after jet ski breaks down

Published: September 29, 2003 | 180th good news item since 2003

Two junior high school girls who were stranded on a jet ski in Lake Biwa with a man in his 40s were rescued after their friends alerted police, law enforcers said over the weekend.

Police and rescue officials found the two girls, both aged 15, drifting on the jet ski in Lake Biwa, Japan’s biggest lake, at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday. Katsuyoshi Ida, the 44-year-old man they were with, was rescued about half an hour earlier.

Police said they received an emergency call from a 15-year-old friend of the girls at about 6:15 p.m. on Sunday, saying the three had left and not come back.

A subsequent search found Ida, a self-employed man from Kyoto’s Nishikyo-ku, swimming for help about 4 kilometers off the coast of Shiga. He was using the cover from the jet ski to keep him afloat. The girls were reportedly found about a kilometer away, wearing life jackets and clinging to the jet ski.

Investigators said the 44-year-old man had come to Lake Biwa with four female students. The five reportedly met up in Kyoto’s Yamashina-ku at about 2 p.m., and one hour later left Hamaotsu port in Otsu on the man’s cruiser with the jet ski on board. They reportedly set out on Lake Biwa at about 5 p.m.

Strong winds had battered the lake on Sunday, prompting a warning between 12:35 p.m. and 8:25 p.m., officials at a local meteorological observatory said. Wind speeds reportedly reached up to 12 meters per second.

The four students were all classmates, and Ida had met them in August at Lake Biwa, police said.

On Sept. 15, a yacht carrying 12 people capsized on Lake Biwa off the shore of Shiga. Seven bodies were recovered and one person remains missing.

Published in Rescues
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