Japanese man dies in motorbike accident near Angkor Wat

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 10 Kyodo

A Japanese man working on a Japanese government project to help preserve the ancient temples of Angkor in northern Cambodia died late Wednesday by a motorbike accident, local police said Thursday.

Tetsuo Kogure, 29, from Chiba Prefecture, died after the motorbike he was driving collided head-on with a parked truck shortly after 8 p.m., police said.

The accident occurred some 8 kilometers west of Siem Reap town, the provincial capital where the famed temple of Angkor Wat is located.

Police speculated that the accident may have happened because Kogure's motorbike light was not bright enough for him to see the truck in time to avoid hitting it or because he was blinded by the lights of a car coming from the opposite direction.

Kogure came to work for the Japanese Government Team for Safeguarding Angkor (JSA) last October, according to a JSA official.

The JSA has been working since 1994 to preserve and restore the Northern Library of the temple of Bayon, the Royal Plaza of the temple of Angkor Thom and the Northern Library inside Angkor Wat's outermost enclosure, and transferring various restoration techniques to Cambodian staff members through collaboration at the sites

It has also been drafting a master plan for the conservation and restoration of the Bayon, organizing symposia and giving training for experts and for students majoring in archaeology and architecture at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh.

Kogure was among hundreds of experts the JSA has dispatched from Japan since the first phase of the project began in November 1994. The project is now in its second phase, which is scheduled to end in April 2005.

JSA officials said Kogure's body would be cremated in Siem Reap.

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