9 victims remembered on 5th anniversary of Sasago tunnel ceiling collapse

December 2, 2017

Tsuru, Yamanashi Pref.- Bereaved family members and others mourned nine people who were killed in the 2012 Sasago Tunnel ceiling collapse, at a memorial service in Tsuru, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Saturday.

"I haven't heard the answer why you went to heaven, and this agonizes me," Shinichi Ishikawa, 68, who lost his 28-year-old daughter, Yuri, in the accident five years ago, in a speech during the ceremony organized by Central Nippon Expressway Co., or NEXCO Central, the operator of the tunnel on the Chuo Expressway.

"I'm determined to find out why the accident happened," Ishikawa said. "I believe this is a duty of those who were left behind." He then called on NEXCO Central executives and other relevant officials to "speak honestly" about the collapse of ceiling panels of the tunnel, located in Otsuki in the same prefecture, west of Tokyo.

NEXCO Central President Yoshihito Miyaike was among the executives attending the ceremony.

Over the accident, the Yamanashi prefectural police send only on Thursday to public prosecutors reports on their investigations into then NEXCO Central President Takekazu Kaneko and seven other people including those at a tunnel maintenance subsidiary on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.

Miyaike vowed to tackle "the endless task" of improving the safety of expressways.

Before the ceremony, the victims' families offered silent prayers and flowers in the tunnel at 8:03 a.m. (11:03 p.m. Friday GMT), the exact time of the accident. The current NEXCO Central president and others prayed for them near the tunnel's entrance.

On Dec. 2, 2012, three vehicles were crashed by collapsed concrete ceiling panels in the tunnel. Besides the nine dead, three people were injured in the accident. Jiji Press