More than 20 people were feared dead after a fire broke out Friday in a building in Osaka in western Japan, officials say. Police were investigating arson as a possible cause, the AP reports. The fire started on the fourth floor of an eight-story building in the major business, shopping, and entertainment area of Kitashinchi, Osaka fire department official Akira Kishimoto said. Twenty-seven people were found in a state of cardiac arrest and one other woman was injured, Kishimoto said. The woman was conscious and brought down by an aerial ladder from a window on the sixth floor and was being treated in a hospital.
Later Friday, 19 people were pronounced dead and three others were resuscitated, NHK national television and other media reported. Japanese authorities declined to confirm those reports. A doctor at one of the hospitals treating the victims said he believed many of them died after inhaling carbon monoxide as they had limited external injuries. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said "many people have died or being in a state of heart and lung failures," without disclosing the exact number. Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura offered condolences.
The building houses an internal medicine clinic, an English language school, and other businesses. Many of the victims are believed to be visitors at the clinic on the fourth floor, fire department officials said. Japanese media reports said police were searching for a man who witnesses saw carrying a paper bag from which an unidentified liquid was dripping. NHK said a female outpatient at the clinic's reception desk saw the man, while another person nearby said the fire started soon after he put the leaky bag on the floor. (More Japan stories.)
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