A traditional wooden boat carrying 29 people on a popular river cruise in Kyoto Prefecture capsized Tuesday, leaving one person dead and one missing, police said.
All 25 passengers onboard were rescued after the incident that occurred at around 11 a.m. on the Katsura River, also known as the Hozu River, in the western Japan prefecture.
Saburo Tanaka, a 51-year-old staff member who had been punting the boat, died while another staff member, a man in his 40s, is unaccounted for, the police said. Two other staff members who were on board are safe.
Nine women among the passengers were sent to hospital for treatment due mainly to hypothermia and bruises, according to the Kyoto municipal fire department.
The accident occurred about 15 minutes after the boat departed a location upstream at around 10:40 a.m., according to Hozugawa Yusen Kigyo Kumiai, operator of the sightseeing tours.
After one of the four staff members made a steering error and fell into the water, the boat hit rocks and capsized, it said.
All 29 people aboard the boat were wearing lifejackets, according to the operator.
The Japan Transport Safety Board, a transport ministry body, decided later Tuesday to send two ship accident investigators to the site of the accident.
The tours, which attract around 300,000 tourists annually, start from Kameoka and traverse through rapids before ending at Arashiyama on the outskirts of the prefectural capital Kyoto.
The tours, which take around 90 minutes, are known for scenic vistas that change with the seasons.
In 2001, a tour boat with 19 passengers and five crew members aboard capsized about three kilometers downstream from the start point in Kameoka, forcing them to swim to safety.
In a more recent accident, in 2015, the captain of a tour boat carrying around 20 people fell into the same river and died.
