Inquiry into Japan fireworks tragedy

More than 100 people were injured

A police investigation has been launched after 10 people were crushed to death by panicking crowds at a fireworks display in the Japanese seaside town of Akashi.

The dead included eight children aged between the ages of two and nine, as well as two women in their 70s.

Saturday night's tragedy happened just after the end of the fireworks display, a popular Japanese summer event, as a crowd of about 130,000 people tried to leave via the only pedestrian bridge connecting the seafront and a nearby train station.

Many of the injured were treated at the scene of the disaster

The ensuing chaos also left 113 people injured, who were taken to 17 nearby hospitals.

Shocked survivors described the crush.

"I fell down too but there was a woman on top of me and she seemed to be unconscious," one teenage boy told national broadcaster NHK. "I thought I would die. I couldn't breathe and it was very scary."

A 14-year-old girl said: "My feet were floating in mid-air as I was pushed by the enormous force and I didn't know what had happened."

The pedestrian bridge was the only route between the seashore fireworks show and the train station, and security guards hinted that arrangements for the show might have been inadequate.

One security guard told TBS television: "The bridge was just too narrow."

But police said it was too early to comment on the cause of the tragedy, which took place at an event organised by the local government of Akashi, a town near the city of Kobe on Japan's main central Honshu island.

"We are in the process of a thorough investigation and the cause is not yet clear," said a police spokesman.

Ambulances delayed

A spokesman for the Akashi government said the city had employed 240 security guards, including 40 to cover the bridge, for the festival. About 350 policemen were also on duty.

There has been criticism of the lack of medical facilities at the scene.

Ambulances took half-an-hour to arrive because of heavy holiday traffic in the city.

A man in his 20s said: "There were fathers and mothers giving their children artificial respiration. The road was packed and the ambulances couldn't reach the site very quickly."