2 people choke to death on mochi rice cakes, Japan's deadly New Year's trend continues

Despite an annual warning from authorities, Japan's deadly New Year trend continued this week as two people died after choke on mochi – a dough cake made of steamed sweet rice that is traditionally served in the new year. Nine people were taken to hospitals in Tokyo after choking on mochi in the first three days of January, Japan was reported todayciting the Tokyo Fire Department. Two of those people, both men, later died.

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

Mochi is a staple of the Japanese New Year's holiday menu and is often eaten in a delicious soup called ozoni. Emily Anderson, curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, to “CBS Sunday Morning” last month New Year's Day is the most important holiday in Japan, and the delicacy of rice cake is an essential part of celebration.

“Eating mochi is a very important part of the most important family-oriented day,” she said.

But the glutinous cakes can easily get stuck in people's throats, restricting breathing. Choking forward mochi so common that authorities offer tips every year on how to help someone with food stuck in their throat. The National Police Agency and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency advise people every year to cut up the rice cakes into small pieces, and eat them in front of someone else, Japan today reported.

Despite the public warnings, the delicacies made from pounded and steamed rice caused death suffocation almost every year, often among the elderly. According to an investigation by the Tokyo Fire Department cited by local mediafrom 2019 to 2023, 368 people were hospitalized with mochi or other objects stuck in their throats, and more than 90% of them were people over 65.

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

In 2001, a famous woman who saved her father's life when she used detergent to release mochi from the 70-year-old's throat.