TOKYO (AFP) - Nine people have choked to death in Japan after eating traditional glutinous "mochi" rice cakes to celebrate the New Year, an official and local media said on Sunday. 
 
 In Tokyo alone, 18 people were sent to hospital due to suffocation after eating the New Year delicacy, and three of them died, a fire department official said. 
 
 The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said the death toll from rice cake accidents reached nine by Friday across the nation and 13 others were in a serious condition. 
 
 During the New Year period, one of Japan's biggest holidays, families traditionally cook "ozouni" soup and put the sticky rice cakes in the vegetable broth. 
 
 The fire department is advising people, especially the elderly and infants, to cut mochi into small pieces before eating it. 
 
 Every year, several Japanese die after choking on rice cakes. 

 On Saturday, a 66-year-old woman on the outskirts of Tokyo fell victim to a deadly seasonal hazard that lands dozens in the emergency room every year on January 1: sticky rice cakes. 
 
 Sticky rice cakes, or mochi, as the Japanese call them, are made by pounding the life out of glutinous rice and are a staple during the Japanese new year feast. The average Japanese consumes about 1 kg of mochi annually, most of which is eaten during the first week of new year, according to the mochi trade association website. 
 
 Rhosoi/Flickr Mochi served in a dish known as zoni makes it stickier and more deathly. 
 
 While harmless to most, mochi claims a handful of lives every year by getting lodged in the throats and blocking the airways of elderly eaters whose mastication abilities and saliva secretion may be weakened by age. According to the Tokyo Fire Department, this traditional food sends over 100 patients to the hospital every year in Tokyo alone—mostly aged 60 and over— half of which end up in serious condition or worse. Between 2006 and 2009, 18 people died from mochi suffocation in Tokyo, making it the leading food item to cause suffocation.
– It's both a New Year tradition and New Year killer: The Japanese eat an average of about 2 pounds of chewy rice cakes called mochi each year, most during the first week in January. And each year, a handful of people choke to death on them. This year's toll was especially severe as compared to recent years: AFP reports by way of local media that as of Friday nine people had died and another 13 were hospitalized; the last two years saw a total of six reported deaths by mochi. The Guardian reports that all but about 20% of the victims are typically elderly, and Japan Today earlier reported that the six people who were taken to Tokyo-area hospitals on Thursday ranged in age from their 50s to their 90s. The sticky rice cakes are generally added to "ozouni" soup over the holidays, but they can also be toasted and wrapped in dried seaweed. The country's police and fire services advise the elderly to cut the mochi into small pieces and never eat it alone. In a 2011 look at the "silent killer," the Wall Street Journal explained why the elderly are more susceptible to mochi-related deaths, which it describes as the leading cause of food-related suffocation: Age chips away at their "mastication abilities and saliva secretion," making it easier for a bite of the glutinous cake to get lodged in the throat. In advance of last year's new year, the Guardian reported that companies have been hustling to create a version that incorporates an enzyme that reduces the stickiness without sacrificing mochi's starchy flavor. (In the US, there were some New Year's-related deaths, too.)