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Fourteen people were injured in a stabbing incident at a factory in central Japan, during which an unidentified liquid was also sprayed, authorities said on Friday. All those injured were conscious, though the extent of their injuries was not immediately known.
“Fourteen people are being transported by emergency services,” Tomoharu Sugiyama, an official from the Mishima Firefighting Department in Shizuoka prefecture, told AFP.
He said emergency services received a call at around 4:30 pm (0730 GMT) from a rubber factory reporting that “five or six people were stabbed by an individual” and that a “spray-like liquid” had also been used.
Kyodo News Agency reported that a man armed with a knife carried out the attack at a rubber factory in Mishima, west of Tokyo. The suspect was detained at the scene and is currently in custody, according to Japanese media. The information was confirmed by emergency officials.
The factory is operated by Yokohama Rubber Co., which manufactures tyres for trucks and buses.
Violent crime is rare in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world’s strictest gun laws. However, isolated incidents of stabbings and shootings have occurred in recent years, including the assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022.
In October, a Japanese man was sentenced to death for a shooting and stabbing rampage in 2023 that killed four people, including two police officers. Separately, a 43-year-old man was charged with attempted murder in May over a knife attack at Tokyo’s Toda-mae metro station.