At least 27 feared dead in building fire in Japan’s Osaka

Japan’s Kyodo News agency, citing investigative sources, reported on Friday that police were investigating the cause of the blaze on the fourth floor of the eight-storey building for suspected arson.

An official at the city’s fire department said 27 people were in cardiopulmonary arrest — a term used in Japan before a death is officially confirmed — and one person was injured.

Video on national broadcaster NHK showed smoke billowing out of the building’s fourth floor windows, where a psychiatry clinic is located, and at the roof of the building.

The NHK said the fire started shortly after the clinic opened for business at 10 a.m. (0100 GMT) and was mostly extinguished within 30 minutes.

Other floors of the building, which is near the Osaka’s main station in the center of the city, housed a beauty salon, a clothes shop and an English-language school, according to the NHK.

One man told the Japanese national broadcaster that he saw a woman calling for help from one of the windows of the eight-storey building.

An arson attack at an animation studio in the city of Kyoto in 2019 claimed the lives of more than 30 people and injured dozens of others.