Victims of Stampede in Western Japan Mourned 25 Years On

Akashi, Hyogo Pref., July 21 (Jiji Press)–Victims of a stampede that occurred at a fireworks event in the city of Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, 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 Co.’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, adjacent to Hyogo, 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, gave training to new city employees Tuesday morning and guided them around the accident site. “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 escaped 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. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]