Families, friends and railway officials on Sunday solemnly marked the ninth anniversary of a 1991 fatal train collision in Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture, that killed 42 people and injured more than 600 others.
At 10:35 a.m. Sunday, the moment the train crash occurred nine years ago, participants in the memorial service offered a minute of silent prayer.
The 42 people, including five employees of Shigaraki Highland Railway, were killed and 614 others were injured when a Shigaraki Highland train collided head-on with a West Japan Railway Co. train traveling on the same track.
The 14.7-km track belongs to Shigaraki Highland, but JR West was running special trains on it to carry people to a world ceramic art festival in Shigaraki, a town famous for its pottery.
On March 24 this year, the Otsu District Court sentenced two Shigaraki Highland workers and a former employee of a railroad signal installation company to suspended prison terms in connection with the accident.
The three men had pleaded not guilty, saying JR West was responsible for the collision.
The crash occurred after the Shigaraki Highland train departed Shigaraki Station despite a malfunctioning signal device that was red at the time. The signal remained red, but Shigaraki Highland operators assumed another device would signal the JR train to stop, and allowed the Shigaraki train to leave the station.
But the signal for the JR train was green on account of repair work being conducted by Shigaraki Highland.