Father 'sorry' after missing Japanese boy is found

TOKYO, June 3 (UPI) -- The boy missing in the woods in Northern Japan for six days has been found alive, media reports said. The boy's father also apologized for leaving his child.

The boy, who identified himself as the missing 7-year-old Yamato Tanooka, of Hokuto, Hokkaido, was reportedly discovered on Friday morning, local time, inside a Japanese Self-Defense Forces training facility in Shikabe.

Tanooka was found without apparent injuries just 2.5 miles from where his parents left him, and from where he soon went missing on Saturday. His parents said they briefly abandoned their son for misbehaving. After forcing the child to get out of their car on a mountain road, they returned shortly afterward to retrieve him but he was nowhere to be found.

The boy's disappearance prompted a massive search, which included efforts of Japan's Self Defense Forces.

Takayuki Tanooka, the boy's father, said he has apologized to his son for the incident.

"I told my son that I am sorry that I made him go through a very hard situation. He nodded to me," Tanooka told CNN affiliate TV Asahi Friday.

"I have been raising him with lots of love," he said. "I would like to pour a lot more love over him from now on, and watch him growing up. I never thought the situation would develop in such a way. I thought it would be good for him, but it was too much."