Per The Guardian, 9:13 PM, EDT:

“A seven-year-old boy who went missing in bear-inhabited forests in northern Japan after his parents said they abandoned him as punishment, has been found alive, according to authorities.

“The boy was found alive, but we don’t have information on details of his condition,” Satoshi Saito, a fire department rescuer, told AFP. Saito said the boy identified himself as Yamato Tanooka.

News agency Kyodo said the boy was found at about 7.50am on Friday by military personnel in a building on an exercise area in the town of Shikabe in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. It is about 5 km away from where he went missing, or 7km if travelling the region’s forest paths.

A police spokesman said: “A Self-Defence Force official who was on a drill found a boy whose age appeared to be seven.

“There was no conspicuous external injury, and the boy introduced himself as Yamato Tanooka.”

Manabu Takehara, a Self-Defence Force spokesman, told AFP: “He looked in good health, but he was sent to hospital by medical helicopter.”

Yamato is now undergoing tests at the hospital in the city of Hakodate.

According to a SDF soldier who is familiar with the building but wasn’t there when they found him, the boy was “curled up” on a mattress and not visibly injured. The soldiers gave him rice balls and bread when he said he was hungry and thirsty.

The area of forest in which Yamato went missing has experienced heavy rainfall, with overnight temperatures dropping to 7 degrees C (44F).

SDF personnel interviewed by TV Asahi said there was no heating in the building, which was supposed to be locked.

Broadcaster NHK reported the boy has been taken to hospital and police were working to confirm his identity and examine the circumstances in which Yamato went missing.

The military has been searching for the boy since Wednesday. The local town of Nanae requested military support after rescuers and police officers had already scoured the area for four days, with heavy rains at times hampering the search.

“We asked the SDF to go into places which people can’t easily access, such as deep crevasses along creeks,” town spokesman Mitsuru Wakayama told AFP.