Nine people have choked to death in Japan after eating traditional glutinous mochi rice cakes to celebrate New Year’s Day, a government official and local media outlets said yesterday.
In Tokyo, 18 people were hospitalized due to suffocation after eating the holiday delicacy, and three died, a fire department official said.
The Yomiuri Shimbun said that deaths across the nation involving rice cakes had reached nine by Friday and that 13 other people were hospitalized in serious condition.
Photo: AFP
During the New Year period — one of Japan’s biggest holidays — families traditionally cook ozouni soup, which is considered to be auspicious, and put the sticky rice cakes in the vegetable broth.
Fire department officials advise that people — especially the elderly and very young — eat only mochi that is cut into small pieces.
Every year, several Japanese die after choking on rice cakes.
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