A pair of travel bloggers drowned in a raging river in Japan. Tsubasa Ito, a 41-year-old from Japan, fell into the water while climbing over a creek gorge in Gifu Prefecture, located in the Chubu region of central Honshu, Japan’s main island.
His 35-year-old wife, Teitei from China, threw him a rope, but when she saw he was being swept away by the strong current, jumped into the water in a desperate attempt to save him. The couple’s bodies were found downstream several hours after last month's incident.
Tsubasa's younger sister confirmed their deaths in a post on Ito's Instagram page, which has 16,000 followers. "My older brother and his wife passed away in a drowning accident while climbing a gorge," the sister wrote. "I hesitated about posting this on Instagram, but I have received many messages from people asking about their safety and offering condolences, so I decided to write.”
The couple, who got married inFebruary, were hiking with another woman when the tragedy occurred. According to reports from the South China Morning Post and the New York Post, both were wearing life jackets which couldn’t help them against the river’s strong currents, which were particularly turbulent after a day of heavy rain in the area.
"My brother and Tei should be climbing a mountain in heaven together," the sister wrote on Instagram. Their followers expressed deep sorrow over the sad news. "I always waited for your posts," one of them wrote. "I’m in shock from this disaster and pray that your souls rest in peace."
Another wrote, "I climbed with Tsubasa countless times. I helped him and he helped me. I learned a lot from his spirituality, not to mention his mountain climbing skills."