Gold bathtub stolen from Japanese hotel

A luxurious bathtub made of gold, worth 120 million yen (US$987,000; EUR 730,600) has been stolen from a resort hotel near Tokyo, an official said Wednesday.

A worker at Kominato Hotel Mikazuki in Kamogawa, south of Tokyo, notified police the fancy tub was missing from the hotel's guest bathroom on the 10th floor of its building, according to local police official who only gave his surname, Ogawa.

The round tub, 1.21 meter (4 feet) in diameter and 71 centimeters (2 feet) tall, was made of 18-karat gold weighing 80 kilograms (176 pounds), Ogawa said.

The tub, flanked by two crane statues, has been a main feature of the hotel's shared bathroom. Visitors can take a dip in the tub, but it is only available a few hours a day "for security reasons," the hotel's Web site said.

Someone apparently cut the chain attached to the door of a small section of the bathroom where the bathtub was placed, but not riveted, and made off with the tub, Ogawa said. The cranes were left untouched.

"We have no witness information and there are no video cameras," he said. "We have no idea who took it," the official said.