After six days of searching through thick forest, the operation to find missing 7-year-old Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka will scale down on Friday, officials say.
Nearly 200 members of search and rescue teams, including dozens of Japan’s self defense force members, have been scouring the mountains of the country’s northern Hokkaido island for any sign of life, according to Satoshi Saito, spokesman for the fire department in the town of Nanae.
“We have been searching through the area over and over thoroughly for six days,” Saito told CNN. “We feel like we have searched all that we could. Although the team will become smaller, we will continue searching without losing hope. There have been cases of missing people who’ve been found after a week.”
The boy’s parents have agreed to the reduced search team after being briefed by the fire department, police and the military, said Saito.
Authorities say the downsized search team will still consist of fire, police and military personnel.
In the woods
Yamato Tanooka was reported missing on Saturday. The 7-year-old’s parents said they left him briefly on the side of a mountain road in the woods of Nanae as punishment for throwing stones at passing cars and people. When his parents returned for him, the boy was gone.
The boy’s father originally told authorities his son had gone missing while picking wild vegetables with his family, but later changed his story, authorities say.
“This is a very rare case, specifically with the story changing in the middle,” Saito said. “We cannot speak retrospectively, but we would have seen a different development if we had known the story from the beginning.”
Saito said officials were considering the possibility that someone picked up the boy from the road but also know he could have wandered into the thick mountain forests.
Tanooka attends Hamawake primary school in Hokuto city in Hokkaido. On Monday, the school held an emergency meeting at which school administrators explained the situation to all the students and shared a hopeful message.
“We shall pray for his safe and immediate return together,” said Principal Tatsuya Kudo.
“We are awaiting good news,” the school’s vice principal Yoshitaka Sawada told CNN.
