Japanese authorities have cancelled all annual flower festivals to stop crowds from gathering during the Coronavirus emergency, with officials ordering for nearly 100,000 tulips and 3000 roses to be cut, as visitors still gathered to see the flowers, despite this global pandemic. Juthy Saha reports.
In Sakura, a town 50km east of Tokyo, officials have cut more than 100,000 tulips, with Sakura tourism official Sakiho Kusano commenting that: “Many visitors came on the weekend when the flowers were in full bloom.
He added: “It became a mass gathering so we had no choice but to make the decision to cut the flowers”.
Though it is painful, workers began severing the buds of about 3,000 rose bushes at Yono park in Saitama, north of Tokyo, in an attempt to keep flower viewers away and ensurre safe distancing measures during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
The local government had already cancelled the annual rose festival, whose main attraction is 180 varieties of rose bushes that reach their peak from around the middle of May.
Sakura City Tourism Association said: “Authorities snipped 800,000 blooming tulips in eastern Japan to stop crowds gathering at a cancelled annual flower festival”.
The 800,000 tulips have long been a centerpiece for an annual festival at the picturesque square. The pink and red flowers that usually carpet the 7,000-square-metre tulip gardens at this time of year, officials said.
This decision has been taken as Japan reported more than 430 new coronavirus cases on Thursday. This is following the news that the virus has killed more than 300 people in Japan, with 29 deaths reported on Thursday.
Flower lovers will now have to wait until next year to see the tulips. The cut flowers have not gone to waste, however. Officials said they had been donated to local kindergartens.
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