About 20,000 fireworks light up the night sky over the Sumidagawa river in Tokyo on July 29 as a record number of visitors turn out for the event being held for the first time in four years. (Video by Takuya Isayama)

Photo/Illutration Fireworks illuminate the night sky over the Sumidagawa river in Tokyo on July 29 for the first time in four years. (Kazushige Kobayashi)

The Sumida River Fireworks Festival, the big daddy of summer events in Tokyo, returned in a blaze of glory July 29 after a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fittingly, the annual event drew a record crowd of 1.035 million people, organizers said. Typically, it attracts more than 900,000 visitors.

The festivities involved around 20,000 fireworks launched into the humid summer night from two barges anchored in the Sumidagawa river near the Asakusa district and the Tokyo Skytree tower.

The organizing committee is comprised of the Tokyo metropolitan government and five wards in local proximity.

In 2019, the last time the event was held, it attracted 959,000 visitors. It was canceled in 2020 through 2022 due to the pandemic.

The festival resumed this year after the central government reclassified COVID-19 into the same category as seasonal flu in May, meaning there were no restrictions on attendance levels.

Multiple fireworks festivals in Tokyo throughout July have been registering record or near-record visitor numbers.

Organizers of the Sumidagawa event had anticipated bigger crowds this year and marshaled security guards and local neighborhood associations to help with crowd control.

Tokyo Metro Co. and Tokyo’s Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, which operates the Toei subway network, put on additional trains to cope with the surge of visitors.

Even so, many areas were heavily congested.

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