Megalos Musashikoganei, where a 6-year-old boy fatally drowned, is seen in the Tokyo suburban city of Koganei on July 29, 2025. (Mainichi/Yuka Asahina)
TOKYO — A 6-year-old boy died after drowning in a pool at a sports club in the Tokyo suburban city of Koganei on July 28, sparking a police investigation.
The first grader from the city drowned in a pool at Megalos Musashikoganei during a trial lesson as part of an after-school child care service, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)’s Koganei Police Station revealed to the Mainichi Shimbun.
According to the MPD, the boy drowned several minutes after entering the pool at around 10:30 a.m. on July 28 and was taken to the hospital unconscious and in a critical condition. He was pronounced dead shortly past 10 p.m. that day.
The boy was approximately 113 centimeters tall, while the area where he was found drowned was about 120 cm deep. Although there were adjustment boards around 40 cm high in some parts of the pool to allow children’s feet to touch the floor, no such device was placed at the spot where he drowned.
A Mainichi interview with the sports club operator, Nomura Real Estate Life & Sports Co. based in Tokyo’s Nakano Ward, has revealed that a girl had drowned in the same pool in March 2024.
According to Nomura Real Estate Holdings Inc., the parent company of the sports club operator, the girl under the age of 10 drowned during a “kids swimming” lesson at around 11:20 a.m. on March 24 last year. She visited a hospital after being rescued, and was not in any life-threatening condition. The accident was attributed to a failure to attach a floating device to her, and she apparently slipped from an adjustment board placed inside the pool.
The following day, the operator distributed a letter to parents, stating, “An accident has occurred where a child drowned due to a failure to attach a floating device. We offer our deepest apologies for causing a great deal of trouble due to flaws in our club’s safety management.”
In the letter, the operator cited measures to prevent a recurrence across all its Megalos sports clubs, such as ensuring that users were wearing floating devices, reinforcing pool monitoring work and reducing the size of classes requiring floating devices from 12 to 10 people.
The latest incident occurred around 16 months after the previous case. When the 6-year-old boy drowned, there was an employee of the sports club inside the pool, and a part-time staff member of the after-school child care service was at the poolside. The MPD is investigating whether there were issues with the safety management system on the part of the sports club and after-school care service staffers, with an eye on accusing them of professional negligence resulting in death.
Upon an inquiry by the Mainichi, Nomura Real Estate Holdings commented, “Even though we tried to improve upon the previous incident, another drowning case has occurred. We will strive to identify the root causes.”
The sports club operator released a comment July 30 saying, “We sincerely pray for the repose of the soul of the child who died and offer our deepest condolences to his family.” The company stated that it would suspend the operation of pools across its sports clubs until the cause is identified, and added, “We will work to prevent a similar incident from happening again.”
(Japanese original by Kengo Suga, Yuka Asahina and Masaki Takahashi, Tokyo City News Department)
AloJapan.com