TOKYO – Former transport minister Yuichiro Hata died on Sunday while being transported to a hospital in Tokyo, though the cause of his death was not immediately known, people close to him said. He was 53.

Hata, son of late Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata and secretary general of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in the upper house, had had a fever for a few days and was planning to take a coronavirus test, they said.

After serving as a secretary for his father, Hata, a native of Nagano Prefecture, became a House of Councillors lawmaker through a by-election in 1999.

The upper house lawmaker of five terms joined the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in 2012 as the minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism.