Two people choke to death on mochi rice cakes, continuing deadly New Year's trend in Japan

Despite an annual warning from authorities, a deadly New Year's trend continued in Japan this week, with two people killed after choking on mochi — a cake made of steamed sweet rice dough, which is traditionally served on New Year's Eve. Nine people were taken to hospitals in Tokyo after choking on mochi during the first three days of January. This is reported by Japan Todayciting the Tokyo Fire Department. Two of those people, both elderly men, later died.

A man in his 70s choked on mochi at his home in Itabashi, near Tokyo, on New Year's Day and was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. This was reported by local television. Another man in his 80s who lived in the Tokyo suburb of Nerima also died after choking on the delicacy, Japan Today reported.

Mochi is a staple of the Japanese New Year holiday menu and is often served in a savory soup called ozoni. Emily Anderson, Curator of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, told CBS Sunday Morning Last month, the New Year became the most important holiday in Japan, and rice cake delicacy is an integral part of the celebration.

“Having mochi is a really important part of the most important family day,” she said.

But the sticky cakes can easily get stuck in people's throats, restricting breathing. Suffocating mochi so common that the authorities issue advice every year on how to help someone with food stuck in their throat. The National Police Agency and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency each year advise people to cut rice cakes into small pieces and eat them in the presence of someone else, Japan Today informed.

Despite public warnings, treats of pounded, steamed rice caused death by suffocation almost every year, often among the elderly. According to a survey by the Tokyo Fire Department that cites local mediafrom 2019 to 2023, 368 people were hospitalized with mochi or other objects stuck in the throat, and more than 90% of them were people over the age of 65.

In 2022, four elderly women choked to death on rice cakes, and another 12 people were hospitalized. In 2015 nine people were believed to have died participating in an annual culinary tradition.

In 2001, a woman famously saved her father's life when she used a vacuum cleaner to knock the mochi out of the throat of a 70-year-old man.