Akashi, Hyogo Pref. ¨C Victims of a stampede that occurred at a fireworks event in the city of Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, were remembered Tuesday, the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.
Bereaved relatives, local residents and others offered prayers in front of a memorial on a pedestrian overpass where the crowd crush happened July 21, 2001, claiming the lives of 11 people, including nine children. The accident at the overpass linking West Japan Railway¡¯s Asagiri Station and the venue of the city-sponsored event left 247 others injured.
On Friday, four days before the 25th anniversary, Toshihiro Kawaguchi, a professor of Kansai University in Osaka Prefecture, gave a lecture for senior officials of the Akashi Municipal Government, at the invitation of the city.
¡°The most important thing is to prevent overcrowding,¡± Kawaguchi, an expert in crowd safety science and accident prevention, said.
Takeshi Nakagawa, the city¡¯s chief crisis management official, said, ¡°I once again recognized that the tragedy was a man-made disaster.¡±
Seiji Shimomura, 68, who served as head of a now-defunct association of the victims¡¯ families, guided new city employees around the accident site on Tuesday morning.
¡°My sorrow and anger remain even after 25 years,¡± said Shimomura, who lost his 2-year-old second son, Tomohito, in the crowd crush. ¡°I want you to foster a culture of safety and security so that the victims¡¯ sacrifice will not be in vain,¡± he told the attendees. The association was disbanded in 2023.
Over the deadly stampede, five individuals, including a former senior official of Akashi Police Station responsible for crowd control and a city government executive, were convicted of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.
The then-deputy chief of the police station, who initially avoided indictment, became the first person in Japan to have been forcibly indicted based on a prosecution inquest panel¡¯s decision. In 2016, however, the Supreme Court, upholding lower court rulings, decided to terminate the trial for the former deputy chief without handing down a guilty or not-guilty ruling, due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
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