Reuters AlertNet Lite - Japan teenager commits gas suicide, 120 evacuated

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Japan teenager commits gas suicide, 120 evacuated

24 Apr 2008 08:03:17 GMT
Source: Reuters

TOKYO, April 24 (Reuters) - About 120 people were evacuated from their apartments in western Japan after a 14-year-old girl killed herself by producing and inhaling poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas, the local fire department said on Thursday.

The increasing use of such poisonous gas to commit suicide has received much media attention in Japan in recent months, after websites showed methods of creating the gas with bathroom cleansers.

At least 40 such cases of suicides have taken place this year, Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported last week, citing the Japan Suicide Prevention Association.

Almost 90 people, including the girl's mother who had been out at the time, went to hospital in Konan City on Wednesday night after the apartment "smelled like rotten eggs" from the hydrogen sulphide that the girl made, the local fire department said.

A note saying "poisonous gas being produced" was posted on the door of the girl's apartment, and police found a bathroom cleanser container in the apartment that may have been used for making the gas, the fire department said.

Japan has the second highest suicide rate in the Group of Eight nations after Russia, a World Health Organisation report showed.

The annual number of suicides has been above 30,000 for nine years in a row, police figures showed last year. (Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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