The Festival Pot

A residential neighborhood in Wakayama, Sunday, 9 am. At Saturday's summer festival, the residents' association served at 6 pm a curry cooked that morning and kept in a garage on the street.

Half an hour later, twenty-two neighbors were vomiting on the sidewalk. Haruo Ishizuka, 64, the association's president, who by tradition always eats the first plate, died at the hospital in the early hours.

The pot spent the whole day in the garage, watched in shifts by neighborhood women.

Three people came near that pot on Saturday. One of them knew what was at the bottom.

Japanese residential street after a summer festival: lanterns, stacked tables, police tape at a garage.