Photo/Illutration Visitors offer prayers in front of a memorial erected for the victims of the Aug. 12, 1985, Japan Airlines jumbo jet disaster. (Takuya Isayama)

UENO, Gunma Prefecture--Relatives of victims of the 1985 Japan Airlines jumbo jet crash that claimed 520 lives offered silent prayers and flowers here Aug. 12, the 38th anniversary of the world’s deadliest aviation accident involving a single aircraft.

More mourners attended the event at Mount Osutakayama this year, most likely due to the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions on outdoor activities.

Prayers were offered in front of memorial markers placed along the hiking trail and mountain slope up to a ridge at an elevation of about 1,500 meters where the plane came down.

Fumiharu Nishimura, 74, of Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, came to remember his brother-in-law, Takayuki Ozawa, who was 29.

For Nishimura it was his first visit in three years.

He shunned the earlier anniversaries because of a condition that mourners wear a face mask while in the presence of others on the mountain.

“I was able to make the hike in good health,” Nishimura said. “He loved beer, so I want to again share a drink with him.”

Masayoshi Fujiwara, a 63-year-old teacher from Mito in eastern Japan, came to remember two cousins who perished in the crash.

Fujiwara has been making the climb annually in place of his aunt and uncle, who are now too frail to do so.

After offering flowers and incense at their memorial marker, Fujiwara said he could not imagine the pain that parents must have felt at so suddenly losing their children in such tragic circumstances.

(This article was written by Miu Yamada, Sakura Kawamura and Shun Yoshimura.)

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