TOKYO —

The spate of hydrogen sulfide gas-induced suicides continued over the holiday weekend, with at least seven people killing themselves across the country.

In Kunneppu, Hokkaido, a 30-year-old unemployed man killed himself by making the deadly gas in his home Sunday morning just as police were about to arrest him for alleged involvement in a theft in Kawasaki.

When investigators visited the man’s house and asked him to go to a police station for questioning, the man said he wanted to fetch something from his room. A while later, his father found him unconscious.

In Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, police found the body of a 24-year-old university student in his apartment bathroom early Sunday.

The fire department detected hydrogen sulfide gas. A note was posted on the door to the bathroom warning people not to enter, the police said.

Two people who live near the apartment were taken to a hospital after complaining of sore throats, while more than 80 people in the neighborhood were temporarily evacuated.

On Saturday, two men and a woman, all believed to be in their 20s, were found dead in a bathroom in a fifth-floor room in a business hotel in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo.

In Sapporo, a 35-year-old man was found dead in a condominium Saturday evening after the manager of the building alerted police about a foul odor.

Police found chemical containers in the condominium’s bathroom, where the man’s body was found. About 50 residents of the first and second floors of the building were temporarily evacuated.

Saturday afternoon, a 25-year-old man was found dead in his room in his family’s house in Nabari, Mie Prefecture, in what the police suspect was another hydrogen sulfide-induced suicide.

© 2008 Kyodo News. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

11 Comments

• 

  timorborder at 10:56 AM JST - 5th May

  How do you make this stuff again? It seems that since "how to do" advice has appeared over the last couple of months, Hydrogen Sulfide has become the new tool of choice when cashing in one's chips.

• 

  raymech1 at 11:01 AM JST - 5th May

  Man, I've heard of fads over there, but this is too much!

• 

  Farmboy at 11:08 AM JST - 5th May

  timorborder,

  Having a bad day? True, there haven't been many good movies lately, but hey, Iron Man is on the way.... Oh....you don't?...right.... Still, there are some decent Italian restaurants...

• 

  pathat at 11:22 AM JST - 5th May

  Only seven over the weekend? When you take into account the 30,000+ suicides each year in this country and average it out per day, a few suicides daily by hydrogen sulfide gas is but a tiny fraction of a much, much larger problem in Japan. The method should be less important than the overall debilitating effect this "10-year spate of suicides" has been having on this society.

  For a people that blab on and on about not wanting to "cause trouble" for others in their daily lives, the Japanese sure do find plenty of ways to inconvenience others when taking their own lives. And with this suicide by hydrogen sulfide gas issue, perhaps the most important thing here is that they are endangering the lives of others around them in some cases.

  I guess this issue helps the newspaper companies sell more of their unnecessary paper copies, and it also gives the news programs and "Wide Shows" something to blab about, too.

• 

  quato at 11:28 AM JST - 5th May

  I think in Japan with suicides the idea is to cause as **much **inconvenience to others as possible- look at the train suicides for evidence. Now it seems to be escalating to bodily harm. Good thing guns aren't easily accessible.

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  DXXJP at 02:53 PM JST - 5th May

  I called it. The new fashion, now lets hope they stay at home and play Mr. professor and not do it in a subway.

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  brandonklex at 05:41 PM JST - 5th May

  where can i buy gas mask in tokyo?

• 

  laconic at 06:23 PM JST - 5th May

  Notice the ad just to the left? You add the gas, we'll do the rest!

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  laconic at 06:24 PM JST - 5th May

  That would be the other left!

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  usaexpat at 11:22 PM JST - 5th May

  And the hits keep on rolling. I'm getting sick of posting the same advice to every suicide article but feel compelled to do it again. If your life is so messed up that you are thinking about ending it make a change. Really if you owe money skipping out is better than offing yourself. You got fired? take it as a good sign, maybe doing something you enjoy for less money is better. You're wife, husband, lover is cheating on you? Come on, it's really not hard to get layed even for un-attractive people, leave em' and start over. When you kill yourself and think "I'll show them" the problem is you aren't around to enjoy it anyway. There are a lot of options in this world and if you are at the point of suicide you have nothing left to lose anyway so get crazy.

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  KitsuneYoukai at 05:39 AM JST - 6th May

  How sad!!!!What can be done at this point?

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