TEMPO.CO, Tokyo-Nineteen people were killed and dozens were wounded after an attack by a knife-wielding man at a facility for the disabled in central Japan early on Tuesday, July 26, 2016, media reported, in Japan's worst mass killing in decades.
Police said they responded to a call about 2:30 a.m. from an employee saying something horrible is happening at the facility in the city of Sagamihara.
The 3-hectare (7.6 acre) facility, established by the local government and nestled on the wooded bank of the Sagami River, cares for people with a wide range of disabilities, NHK said, quoting an unidentified employee.
A man turned himself in at a police station about two hours later, police in Sagamihara said. He left the knife in his car when he entered the station. He has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and trespassing.
Police said there were several casualties but did not provide any numbers.
Police had recovered a bag with several knives, at least one stained with blood, NHK said. No details were provided about where the knives were found.
The man, wearing a black T-shirt, did not have a knife when he turned himself in at a nearby police station, other reports said. Police said they were still investigating possible motives.
Asahi Shimbun reported that the suspect was quoted by police as saying: "I want to get rid of the disabled from this world."
Fifteen people were initially confirmed dead, while four were said to be in cardiac arrest, media reports said. Kyodo later said the death toll stood at 19. There was confusion about the number of wounded, with reports fluctuating between 20 and 45.
Twenty-nine emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported, with those wounded taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.
Television footage showed a number of ambulances parked outside the facility, with medical and other rescue workers running in and out.Mass killing are relatively rare in Japan, which has extremely strict gun-control laws. Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001.
In 2008, seven people were killed by a man who slammed a truck into a crowd of people in central Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district and then stabbed passers-by.
Fourteen were injured in 2010 by an unemployed man who stabbed and beat up passengers on two public buses outside a Japanese train station in Ibaraki Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.
There was still some confusion of the number of casualties in the latest incident, with Kyodo News agency initially reporting that 19 people were killed and 20 injured, but later said at least 15 people were dead and 28 injured.
AP | REUTERS
