Recovery teams on Japan’s Mount Ontake volcano found seven more bodies while searching the ash-covered peak of the mountain. These are in addition to the 36 climbers already known to have died when Ontakesan exploded with hot ash, rocks, and poison gas, raising the death toll to 43.
Officially, the death toll is 25 lives lost, with 18 people “in cardiac arrest” at the top of the mountain. This is because Japanese law says that a doctor must pronounce someone dead.
But it could get even worse. As many as 20-more climbers might have been killed up there. The problem is that during the busy season, “usually only 10 to 20 percent of hikers register their names with authorities before entering the mountains,” according to a local tourism official who spoke with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
327 hikers registered to be on Ontakesan before the eruption. The local fire department says 71 people are missing, while Nagano prefectural police say investigators are sorting through at least 240 reports of missing climbers. Officials are hoping that those people got off the mountain safely and merely forgot to notify mountain managers that they are safe.