NAGANO – A man died after falling about 10 meters from a wooden pillar erected for a festival at Suwa Taisha grand shrine in Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, police said Friday.
At around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Yukihiro Kusakabe, a 41-year-old self-employed man from Suwa, fell from one of the huge fir trunks that he and other participants erected as vertical pillars for the Onbashira Festival, which is held once every six years. Kusakabe fell onto the roof of a piece of heavy machinery 10 meters below after climbing one of the pillars to clear away ropes used to erect it.
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