Woman plunges to death from bridge while filming wild deer in Japan

A woman in Japan fell to her death after losing her footing on a bridge while clicking pictures of deer on her phone.

The incident took place on Saturday at around 9.30am when the woman, reported to be in her 20s, was visiting the town of Higashi-Izu in Shizuoka prefecture with her father.

She used to live in Chiba prefecture, authorities said.

The woman, who was not identified in local media, had left the vehicle that everyone was in and began filming deer and other animals in the mountains using her phone before losing her footing and falling approximately 40m from the bridge.

Her father immediately called the police, who found the woman in a valley, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported. She was taken to a hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.

Earlier in February, the Tokyo district court ordered the APA Hotel Osaka Higobashi-Ekimae in Osala to pay $131,000 to the family of the deceased in damages after a man fell from the 22 floor of the hotel.

The 46-year-old man was staying at the hotel on his business trip when hee went out onto the balcony, which is 65cm wide, through a window 73cm above the room floor and accidentally fell, Mainichi reported.

The court had ruled that the height of the balcony railing at the hotel was illegal under Japan's Building Standards Act, noting that it was too low to prevent falls.