Overview
- About 11,000 people attended the main ceremony at Kobe East Park, which held a 5:46 a.m. moment of silence at the exact time the quake struck.
- Roughly 7,000 lanterns were lit and arranged into “1.17” and the word “tsumugu,” symbolizing the weaving of memories and lessons to the next generation.
- Three people remain unaccounted for from the 1995 disaster, and for the first time a relative of one of them represented bereaved families at the ceremony.
- Etsuko Sato delivered a eulogy for her mother, who is still missing, as families prayed and pledged to keep sharing their experiences.
- A Kobe civic group counted 37 memorial events in Hyogo Prefecture this year, down by 20 from last year and the lowest since its survey began in 1999, as officials reiterate estimates of up to about 300,000 deaths in a worst-case Nankai quake and up to 18,000 in a Tokyo-area magnitude-7.