Victims of Mt. Ontake Eruption Remembered 11 Years On

Otaki, Nagano Pref., Sept. 27 (Jiji Press)–About 60 people mourned the victims of the eruption of Mount Ontake in central Japan 11 years ago in a memorial ceremony on Saturday. A moment of silence was observed at the ceremony in the village of Otaki in Nagano Prefecture at the foot of the 3,067-meter mountain at 11:52 a.m., the exact time when the country’s worst volcanic disaster in the post-World War II period occurred on Sept. 27, 2014. The eruption claimed the lives of 58 people and left five missing. Many climbers were near the mountain summit on a weekend afternoon at the beginning of the autumn leaf season. Toshiaki Nomura, 65, whose then 19-year-old son, Ryota, went missing in the eruption, expressed his gratitude in a speech at the ceremony to those who cooperated with the search for him. “I haven’t been able to hold a funeral for him, nor have I interred his ashes. The more we searched, the more difficult it felt to search vast Mount Ontake,” said Nomura, from Kariya in the central prefecture of Aichi. Kiyokazu Tokoro, 63, who lost his second son, Yuki, said after the ceremony, “I’ve aged in the last 11 years, while Yuki remains 26 years old.” Tokoro, from the Aichi city of Ichinomiya, said, “I hope to continue climbing Mount Ontake to pray for him as long as I have strength.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]