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https://scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3019123/least-10-people-dead-suspected-arson-fire-japanese-animation East Asia
Attacker screamed ‘You die!’ and set fire to Japanese animation studio, leaving 33 dead
- A suspect poured a petrol-like substance around the Kyoto Animation studio, known for mega-hit stories featuring high school girls.
- Footage of the blaze showed thick white smoke pouring from the windows of the building
A fire at an animation studio in Kyoto has left several people dead. Photo: Xinhua
A man screaming “You die!” burst into an animation production studio in Kyoto, Japan, and set it on fire early Thursday, authorities said, leaving 33 people confirmed or presumed dead.
The blaze injured another 36 people, some of them critically, Japanese authorities said. Most were workers at Kyoto Animation, known for mega-hit stories featuring high school girls.
The fire started in the three-story building in Japan’s ancient capital after the suspect sprayed an unidentified liquid accelerant, Kyoto prefectural police and fire department officials said.
The suspect was injured and taken to a hospital, officials said. Police are investigating the man on suspicion of arson.
Survivors who saw the attacker said he was not their colleague and that he was screaming “(You) die!” when he dumped the liquid and started the fire, according to Japanese media reports. They said some of the survivors got splashed with the liquid.
Footage of the blaze showed thick white smoke pouring from the windows of the three-storey building. Its facade was charred black on much of one side where the flames had shot out of the windows.
“Rescue operations are continuing, and we are trying to bring out several victims who are trapped inside … including ones who may not be able to move by themselves,” a fire department spokesman said.
A fire at an animation studio in Kyoto has left several people dead. Photo: AFP
“We cannot immediately determine their condition,” he said.
The fire department said it began receiving calls around 10:35am (local time) about the fire at the studio belonging to Kyoto Animation.
“Callers reported having heard a loud explosion from the first floor of Kyoto Animation and seeing smoke,” the spokesman said.
People near the studio said they heard a series of explosions. Photo: Reuters
Police said they were still investigating the cause of the fire but it was a suspected arson attack.
“I heard two loud bangs, they sounded like explosions,” a man told public broadcaster NHK.
“The fire was raging hard. I saw red flames flaring.”
A woman living nearby told Kyodo news agency she had seen at least one injured person outside the building.
“A person with singed hair was lying down and there were bloody footprints,” the 59-year-old told the local news outlet.
There was no immediate statement from the studio, which produced several well-known television anime series, including “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” and “K-ON!”
Smoke billows from the Kyoto Animation building. Photo: Kyodo
“We are in the process of learning what happened,” said a woman who answered the phone at the firm’s headquarters in Uji City in the Kyoto region.
“We cannot tell you anything more,” she added.
With at least 23 killed or presumed dead, the fire was the worst mass killing in Japan since a man stabbed and killed 19 people at an assisted living facility in western Tokyo in 2016.
A fire in 2001 in Tokyo’s congested Kabukicho entertainment district killed 44 people in its worst known case of arson in modern times. Police never announced an arrest for setting the blaze, though five people were convicted of negligence. In 2008, 16 people died in a blaze at a movie theater in Osaka, near Kyoto.
The blaze prompted an outpouring of support from those in Japan’s anime industry, one of the country’s best known cultural exports.
“No, I don’t know what I should be thinking now,” tweeted Yutaka Yamamoto, an animation director who once worked at Kyoto Animation.
“Why, why, why?”