Victims Remembered 6 Years after Earthquake in Hokkaido

   Atsuma, Hokkaido, Sept. 7 (Jiji Press)--Bereaved families and others on Saturday prayed for those killed in a powerful earthquake that left 44 people dead in the northernmost Japan prefecture of Hokkaido six years ago.
   Some 150 people attended a memorial ceremony in the town of Atsuma, offering silent prayers for the victims and flowers to the stand.
   At the ceremony, Atsuma Mayor Shoichiro Miyasaka expressed his determination to make the town resilient and flexible.
   In a speech, Tadao Nakamura, 62, who lost his mother in the earthquake said that the flower that his mother had taken care of blooms even years after the disaster. "I feel like that the flower gives a hard stare to me, telling me to live steadily."
   The Sept. 6, 2018, earthquake measured the maximum level of 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, leaving more than 2,300 homes destroyed or heavily damaged. It triggered the country's first total blackout across Hokkaido, leaving around 2.95 million homes without power.

(2024/09/07-15:52)

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