Eight schoolchildren aged from six to eight died Friday in a frenzied stabbing attack by a mentally disturbed man at a school in western Japan, officials said.
The 37-year-old man stormed into four classrooms at Ikeda Elementary School committing Japan's worst mass killing since the Aum Supreme Truth cult killed 12 in a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
The man stabbed at least 26 children and three teachers, police said, in the latest shocking incident to hit a country proud of its low crime rates.
"We have confirmed eight children have died," said Tetsuo Higashimoto of the Ikeda Fire Department.
The man, who was high on medication, went on the 12-minute rampage, stabbing children with knife with a 15 centimeter (six inch) blade during a morning break at the school in the Osaka suburb of Ikeda, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Tokyo.
Fifteen of the injured were still in hospital as of 7:00 pm (1000 GMT), according to an Osaka police officer, but he was unable to give details of their condition.
Eleven of the wounded were taken to Ikeda City hospital, where three died, two more were in a serious condition, while the other six, including a 27-year old male teacher who helped overcome the knifeman, were slightly injured, said the hospital's deputy chief surgeon, Tetsuro Kobayashi.
Six children were in a serious condition and a 28-year old male teacher was in a critical condition after undergoing emergency surgery, Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) said.
The man, identified as Mamoru Takuma, was arrested at the prestigious school with the help of two teachers, but was incoherent when questioned by police having taken a massive dose of tranquillizers.
"At the time of arrest, he was barely conscious," Osaka prefectural police investigation chief Yasuhiro Kitagawa told a news conference.
Takuma was quoted by police as saying: "I got sick of everything. I attempted suicide several times but could not die. I wanted you to catch me and execute me."
He sustained light cuts to his hands and was taken to Ikeda police station after receiving treatment at a local hospital.
Children, some drenched in blood, ran screaming to local shops to escape the horror.
"He was stabbing only small children ... many were stabbed in the belly. I saw a girl sobbing on the stairs and another lying down," one little girl told reporters at the scene.
Terumi Fujii, a 66-year-old tobacco shop owner in the middle-class neighborhood, said she did "not understand why a thing like this happened in this quiet place."
"I was so shocked and could not hold back my tears," she told AFP.
"I found four boys and girls kneeling down in front of a nearby supermarket. Blood was all over their white shirts."
The schoolmates who died were aged between six and eight. Japanese elementary school pupils are aged from six to 12 years.
"Even the lightly injured and the uninjured are in deep shock today. It is not a situation where we can interview them," the police investigator said.
Minutes after the attack occurred, ambulances surrounded the main entrance to the school with stretchers lying ready on the ground. Children could be seen lining up in the schoolyard under instructions from teachers shortly after the man was arrested.
Takuma had been arrested in March 1999 for allegedly lacing tea with a tranquillizer and serving it to four teachers at another elementary school where he used to work, police said.
He confessed to the crime but was freed by prosecutors on the grounds that he was mentally unstable, reports said.
Police said Takuma had been attending a mental hospital as an outpatient between April 1999 and May 24 this year. He had been hospitalized three times in the past for schizophrenia treatment.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed shock and issued a message of condolence for the victims.
"I feel utmost sorrow that this incident happened at school, where children should be able to study safely," he said.
"This is something that should have never happened," Education Minister Atsuko Toyama told reporters.
"I sincerely regret it. We will think about what we can do by setting up a taskforce and investigating the facts."
Japanese commentators have been anguishing over a spate of shocking juvenile crimes in recent years including violence in the school playground. Even so tragedies on the scale of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado in which two teenagers gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves, are unheard of in Japan.
The country is still haunted by memories of a 14-year-old boy in Kobe, western Japan, who chopped off another pupil's head and stuck it on the school gates in 1997 -- IKEDA, Japan, June 8 (AFP)
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