Keen Japanese interest in Antarctic crash story

Press, 6 December 1979, Page 22

Keen Japanese interest in Antarctic crash story

Detailed news coverage of the Antarctic D.C. 10 disaster is being relayed to Japan. Mr Katsuhisa Hamazaki, Manila correspondant for one of Japan's biggest daily newspapers, was on his way to Christchurch three hours after his Tokyo head office told him on November 29 of the 24 Japanese tourists who had been aboard the crashed DCIO.

Two other journalists of the paper, the “Yomiuri Shimbun,” have since arrived, to be stationed at Auckland and Wellington. Mr Hamazaki’s reports — he sometimes writes four a day — are being read by at least eight million people; that is the circulation of the papers’ four morning and three evening editions. During two years and a half in Manila, Mr Ham-

azaki, aged 41, has covered other big air crashes in Malaysia and Singapore. “The problem is since Japanese people began travelling everywhere,” he said. “Whenever an air crash occurs, we have to think right away that there might be Japanese aboard.” The big interest shown by Japan demonstrates that country’s concern

with the recovery of crash victims from Mount Erebus. Like reporters of Reuters, United Press International, and the 8.8. C. who have chased news of the crash in Christchurch, Mr Hamazaki has been declined entry to the Antarctic. “Newspaper men are the same all over the world,” he said “They are keen on getting the story.”