犠牲者４２人を追悼　信楽鉄道事故３１年―滋賀

　滋賀県信楽町（現甲賀市）で１９９１年５月、信楽高原鉄道（ＳＫＲ）とＪＲ西日本の列車が正面衝突し、４２人が死亡した事故から３１年を迎えた１４日午前、現場近くの慰霊碑前で追悼法要が行われた。
　法要には、遺族やＳＫＲの正木仙治郎社長、ＪＲ西の長谷川一明社長らが参列。黙とうをささげて献花し、犠牲者の冥福を祈った。新型コロナウイルス対策のため、３年連続で参列者数を限定し、両社長による追悼の言葉は読み上げず、慰霊碑に供えた。（2022/05/14-12:21）

A ceremony was held Saturday to pay tribute to the 42 victims of a train collision in Shiga Prefecture, western Japan, that happened exactly 31 years ago.
   Participants in the ceremony, held in front of a cenotaph erected near the accident site, included Senjiro Masaki, president of Shigaraki Kohgen Railway Co. (SKR), and Kazuaki Hasegawa, president of West Japan Railway Co. , or JR West, as well as bereaved relatives.
   They laid flowers at the cenotaph and observed a moment of silence for the victims.
   The number of participants in the annual memorial ceremony was limited for the third straight year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The presidents of the two railway companies offered their written messages for the victims at the cenotaph, instead of reading them out.
   On May 14, 1991, an SKR train and a JR West train collided head-on on SKR's single-track Shigaraki Line in the town of Shigaraki, now the city of Koka, leaving the 42 people dead and more than 600 others injured.