Mt Fuji in crisis as tourists swarms are defiling the sacred mountain: Officials

Mt Fuji was listed as a Unesco World Heritage site 10 years ago, further boosting its popularity. — MELODY L. GOH/The Star

On a grey, rainy Saturday a steady stream of tour buses arrive at a base station of Japan's Mount Fuji depositing dozens of lightly dressed foreign tourists in front of souvenir shops and restaurants.

The scene evokes a theme park image, not the veneration most Japanese would expect below the 3,776m mountain worshipped as sacred by the Japanese, and a source of pride for its perfectly symmetrical form.