A lighting display event was held on Jan. 16. on a sandbar in the Mukogawa river running through Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
A 20-meter-by-10-meter art piece consisting of stones--in the shape of the Chinese character "sei" (life)--was lit to pray for the peaceful rest of the souls of the more than 6,000 people killed by the earthquake that leveled parts of Kobe on Jan. 17, 1995.
Participants also mourned the deaths of victims of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
(Asahi)
↧