Japan's century-old hot springs "thunder", ignorant and arrogant [hot spring Besso] president can not withstand the pressure and choose to commit suicide, how many such hot springs are there in Japan?
The incident took place in Chikushino, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, a hot spring town called Fukkaichi Onsen, which has a very long history and is one of Japan's cultural heritages, and among the many such hotels in this hot spring town, the most famous is the nearly 160-year-old "Daimarubetsuso", which covers an area of more than 21,500 square meters, selling in addition to a large Japanese-style garden, 41 rooms with Uchiyu, a century-old building full of age, and an alkaline simple hot spring that they are very proud of.
According to the website, this hot spring can spew 100 liters of 48 degrees Celsius water per minute, which is effective for chronic arthritis, burns, and various skin and gastrointestinal diseases. Many celebrities in politics and show business, even Emperor Shōchi, have lived here, so the popularity of "Daimarubetsuso" has always been very high, and those who have stayed have praised their hot springs.
After reading these good reviews, are you also a little excited to take a dip? But no one could have imagined that such a high-end hotel with a long history and tens of thousands of days a night would also have an accident, in 2022, cases of legionnaires' disease have been found all over Japan, and after checking the health department, it was found that the infected people have recently soaked in hot springs, and they are all soaked in [Daimaru Besso], so in August 2022, the relevant departments went to take samples and found that the content of legionella in their hot springs exceeded the standard by 2 times, and the president of the hotel at that time, Yamada Makoto, was still quibbling, said that they have been in accordance with the provisions of the Public Bath Law, every week to thoroughly replace the spring water and regular chlorination and disinfection, in October provided a self-inspection report to explain that all the standards were met, but did not expect that in November the health department went to [Daimaru Besso] surprise inspection, this time the content of legionella detected exceeded the standard by 3700 times, at this time President Yamada Macai finally admitted that the original large communal bath hot spring water was only changed twice a year, and did not regularly chlorinate and disinfect as required, and also forged fake disinfection and cleaning records to cheat the review.
And the serious violation of [Daimaru Besso] was finally exposed by the media until February 24 this year, and many Japanese netizens were dumbfounded when they heard that the century-old store did such a thing.
Do you think of those comments that once said that their hot spring water is slippery and sticky? That's right! In fact, these are the "biofilms" produced because the spring water has not been replaced for a long time, and the bottom of the pool has not been cleaned regularly.
The Japanese come out and bow as soon as they make a mistake
It is common sense to bow and apologize at a press conference for such a big thing in Japan, and although President Yamada Shin has no chest to show, he unexpectedly reveals his ignorance and arrogance. For the failure to change the water at least once a week as required, Yamada confessed at the press conference that he personally commanded and personally deployed, citing the decrease in guests during the epidemic, and the baths where 70 liters of new hot spring water are injected every minute, and a filtration system is added to drain the old water, so I think the water quality of the baths should be good. But when the reporter asked him, "Before the outbreak, did you follow the rules?" "Yamada said with a weak heart that I can't be sure if I have complied with it, but I know that I do. Of course, the reporter wanted to know when the hotel began to violate the law, so he continued to ask, and Yamada Makoto, who could not resist the pressing, hinted that the regulations had been violated since the construction of the large communal bath in 1992, so the violation did not change the water and the epidemic had nothing to do with it.
Of course, I also understand that it is very laborious and expensive to empty the water and wash the bottom of the tank every week, but why not even do chlorination?
Yamano's explanation turned out to be because he didn't like the taste of chlorine, such a wayward president, no wonder some employees once questioned Yamada's approach was also ignored by him.
As for the question about legionella, Yamada said that because this bacterium exists in nature, there should not be much problem if it is everywhere anyway. He also said very frankly that even if someone really died of infection because of soaking in the hot spring, maybe it was because those people had underlying diseases that would happen so much, anyway, they thought that they would not be involved with their own body.
As a result, Yamada Makoto was criticized by netizens and the media for his absurd explanation, and he kept going to e-commerce platforms to brush 1-star negative reviews, and the rating dropped from 4.4 to 3.7 in one day.
So is Legionella really a big deal like Yamada says? In fact, the number of Legionnaires' disease infections is increasing almost every year in Japan, and hot spring hotels and bathhouses are the most common areas for Legionnaires' disease. For example, in 2002, the hot spring of a hotel in Miyazaki Prefecture was detected to have a content of Legionella bacteria exceeding the standard by 150,000 times, resulting in 295 infections, of which 7 elderly people aged 62-82 died, and more recently, in April 2022, 2 men contracted Legionnaires' disease after soaking in a hot spring in a hotel in Hyogo Prefecture, Kobe City, and one of them died after ineffective treatment.
So this time Yamada was lucky, after all, he was exposed before he was killed, and the police only investigated in the direction of violating the Public Bath Law. Generally speaking, it is a fine or suspension of business, which is at most 6 months in prison, but as Yamada said at the press conference, he is ashamed of the efforts of his ancestors for more than 150 years, and this incident has seriously damaged everyone's confidence in the hotel industry, especially the signboard of Fukkaichi Hot Spring Town. The pressure and guilt were far greater than the legal responsibility, and on the 12th, Yamada Makoto was found on the side of the road deep in the mountains and found a letter saying sorry, everything was caused by my immoral behavior, and the rest was pleased
Seeing this, do you think that there will be such a problem in our country's hot springs? Is Legionnaires' disease really only in Japan? Do those who often visit Japan to visit hot springs still dare to go today?