* Police say 15 dead, 4 in cardiac arrest, 45 injured - media
* Attack happened at facility for disabled southwest of Tokyo
* Former employee of facility arrested - reports quoting police
Nineteen people were feared dead and 45
injured after an attack by a knife-wielding man at a facility for the
disabled in Japan early today, national broadcaster NHK reported.
Police in Sagamihara, Kanagawa
Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo, have arrested
Satoshi Uematsu, a 26-year old former employee at the facility, Japanese
media reported.
They said staff called police at 2.30
a.m. local time (1730 GMT Monday) with reports of a man armed with a
knife on the grounds of the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility.med
The 3-hectare (7.6 acres) facility,
established by the local government and nestled on the wooded bank of
the Sagami River, cares for people with a wide range of disabilities,
NHK said, quoting an unidentified employee.
Media reports said the man, wearing
ablackmediaT-shirt, did not have a knife when he turned himself
in at a nearby police station. Police said they were still investigating
possible motives.
Asahi Shimbun reported that the suspect was quoted by police as saying: "I want to get rid of the disabled from this world."
Fifteen people were confirmed dead while
four were in cardiac arrest, the media reports said. The wounded were
taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.
Twenty-nine emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported.
A man identified as the father of a
patient in the facility told NHK he learned about the attack on the
radio and had received no information from the centre.
"I'm very worried but they won't let me in," he said, standing just outside a cordon of yellow crime-scene tape.
Kyodo, citing the facility's website, said the centre had a maximum capacity of 150 people.
Such mass killings are rare in Japan. Eight children were stabbed to death at their school by a former janitor in 2001.
