TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested two foreign males who climbed to the top of one of the towers of the Rainbow Bridge at Tokyo Bay, reports the Mainichi Shimbun (May 20).
At 5:40 p.m. on May 14, a German national, 19, and a Ukrainian, 18, allegedly crossed into a restricted area and ascended up one of the bridge’s towers, whose tip is about 120 meters above the water’s surface.
“I wanted to take a photograph,” the German suspect is quoted by officers from the Tokyo Wangan Police Station. Both suspects were charged with trespassing.
The restricted area was marked for no entry by signage in English and Japanese. In entering, the pair climbed a fence and used a cable and worker passage way in climbing to the top of the tower.
The German is in Japan on a short-term visa while the Ukrainian is a resident.
Rainbow Bridge, which spans more than 900 meters between its anchorages, opened in 1996.
Police were alerted to the incident after a passerby saw the two suspects making the climb.
