OTAKI, NAGANO PREFECTURE ¨C 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 of 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 leaves season.
Toshiaki Nomura, 65, whose then 19-year-old son, Ryota, went missing in the eruption, expressed his gratitude to those who cooperated with the search for him in a speech during the ceremony.
¡°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 Aichi Prefecture.
Kiyokazu Tokoro, 63, who lost his second son, Yuki, said after the ceremony, ¡°I¡¯ve grown old 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.¡±
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