Education Tower (Kyōikutō) 教育塔

Official explanation

Education Tower was built in 1936 and initially served as a memorial to schoolteachers and students who had died in a typhoon two years before. The storm, one of the most powerful ever recorded at the time, hit at the start of the school day, and more than a quarter of the 990 lives it claimed in Osaka were those of children and teachers. Many schools of that era were wooden structures that could not withstand powerful storms, and more than 200 of Osaka’s educational institutions were reportedly destroyed or badly damaged by the typhoon’s winds.

Stories later circulated of teachers who heroically risked their lives to lead students to safety or attempted to shelter them as the buildings collapsed. The construction of Education Tower was funded by public donations, and since the end of World War II, it has been managed by the Japan Teachers’ Union. Today, the memorial honors educators and students in general, including those killed in subsequent disasters, such as the Great Hanshin Earthquake that hit the city of Kobe in 1995.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.