19 killed, 25 injured in Knife attack at Japan disability centre

TIL Desk/World/Tokyo-Nineteen people were killed and 25 wounded after an attack by a knife-wielding man at a facility for the disabled in central Japan early on Tuesday, a government official said, in Japan’s worst mass killing in decades. Police have arrested Satoshi Uematsu, a 26-year-old former employee at the facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo, a Kanagawa prefecture official said. Uematsu had turned himself in, the official told.

While all 19 had not yet been officially declared dead, they were all “in a state of cardiac arrest”, the official said. Another 25 people were wounded, 20 of them seriously, he said. Japanese officials often describe people as being in cardiac arrest before they are officially declared as dead.

The dead ranged in age from 18 to 70 and included nine males and 10 females. Earlier media reports had said as many as 45 people had been wounded. Staff called police at 2.30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Monday) with reports of a man armed with a knife on the grounds of the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility, media reported. The man wore a black T-shirt and trousers, reports said.