TOKYO - At least four people killed themselves Friday by inhaling fumes from a detergent mixed with other chemicals amid a wave of similar suicides that has reportedly claimed about 50 lives this month in Japan.
Authorities are alarmed by the sudden rise in such incidents — an average of two a day were reported in April — because the chemicals are easy to get and the fumes could spread to affect bystanders or rescuers.
A 47-year-old man killed himself Friday in a Tokyo luxury hotel, said Fire Department official Toshiyuki Miyake.
Officials said emergency workers also found a 29-year-old man dead in his Tokyo apartment; a man in his 50s at a public gymnasium in northern Tokyo; and a man in his 30s in an apartment in nearby Yokohama. All died after inhaling hydrogen sulfide gas, produced by mixing detergent and a bath lotion.
A riot policeman at the Narita International Airport near Tokyo also shot himself in the head in an apparent suicide Friday, said airport police spokesman Masaru Miyamoto.
The government has been battling to contain the country's alarmingly high suicide rate. The government said 32,155 people killed themselves in 2006. Japan has a population of 128 million.
"Suicides using hydrogen sulfide have surged in April," said Eri Okuda, a spokeswoman for the country's Fire and Disaster Management Agency. "It's so easy to obtain the ingredients and anyone can use them."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080425/ap_on_re_as/japan_detergent_suicides
