Seven children dead in Japan school stabbing
( 2001-06-08 14:23 ) (7 )

School children sit on the ground of Ikeda elementary school in Osaka June 8 after fleeing from their classrooms following the deaths of 8 Japanese children and the stabbing of more than 20 others injured by a man who burst into their classroom and began stabbing at random on Monday. [Reuters]

Seven Japanese children were killed on Friday and more than 20 others injured, several critically, by a man who burst into their elementary school classroom and began stabbing at random.

The attack, unprecedented in traditionally safe Japan, took place in the middle of morning classes at the elementary school in Ikeda, a suburb of the western city of Osaka.

While school shootings are becoming a grim part of life in the United States, no such random tragedy has ever struck a Japanese school.

"Seven people are dead and there are seven others in serious condition," an official at the Ikeda fire department said. Japanese media reported that most of the injured children were in the first and second grades.

A male teacher was in critical condition and undergoing emergency surgery, he added. "We have arrested a suspect," said a local police spokesman. Police were holding a 37-year-old man in custody.

The man reportedly walked into a classroom and began stabbing schoolgirls with a 15-centimetre (6 inch) knife. While the motive remained unclear, NHK national television reported the suspect had told police that he had taken 10 times the usual amount of tranquilisers and that he was babbling garbled words.

"This is a terrible incident," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters. "I am very worried about the children."

SCREAMS AND BLOOD

"We were listening to an announcement over the loudspeaker, and then it was broken into by a scream and a noise like a desk falling down," a sixth-grade girl told Reuters. "Then I heard someone scream from below, `Run!'"

A schoolboy said: "I saw a person who had fallen down. I also saw blood."

The quiet of the summer morning around the school, located in an ordinary residential area, was broken by the wail of sirens and clatter of helicopters.

Television showed scenes of ambulances lining the school driveway while students walked out of the building and gathered on the school playing fields.

Frantic parents began arriving at the school soon after, talking urgently into mobile phones. They later left with their children, tight-lipped.

"I saw helicopters flying around, and a lot of ambulances began heading towards the school," a 60-year-old man, whose grandchild had attended the school years earlier, said.

Witnesses reported that a woman with bloodstains on her blouse ran into a nearby supermarket calling for help.

Several hours later, shocked local residents were still gathered at the school's gate.

The incident stunned Japan, where such scenes of mass school violence are unprecedented, and newspapers published special editions.

The only previous school crime in recent years took place in 1998, when a 13-year-old Japanese boy stabbed a teacher to death after she asked why he was late for her English class.

The government launched an emergency task force headed by Education Minister Atsuko Toyama and sent officials to the site. "Such incidents should not occur," Toyama told reporters "Schools should be the safest place."

RISING CRIME

Although Japan has traditionally been known for its safety, this has been changing in recent years, with the number of senseless crimes -- often committed by teenagers -- rising rapidly.

Last year, one 17-year-old boy bludgeoned passengers at a Tokyo subway station with a baseball bat after a fight with his father, another beat his mother to death with a metal bat, while a third stabbed an elderly neighbour to death because he wanted to experience killing someone.

The crimes are not limited to 17-year-olds, however. One of the grisliest incidents of recent years, the 1997 murder and beheading of an 11-year-old boy, was carried out by his 14-year-old playmate.

More recently, there has been a wave of incidents on Tokyo's crowded subways, including one in which a man was killed after by a fellow passenger enraged at his request for people to step back so he could board.