THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
May 9, 2022 at 19:09 JST
Four residents died in a raging house fire that broke out in the early hours of May 9 in western Tokyo, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
The inferno started at around 3:15 a.m. in a two-story house in the capital’s Higashi-Murayama, burning roughly 80 square meters of the residence, police said.
“I was awakened by a bright red light streaming from the window,” said an 82-year-old woman who lives near the site, about 1.3 kilometers west of Seibu Railway Co.’s Higashi-Murayama Station. “When I stepped out onto the balcony, I saw the house in front on fire. The blaze broke the glass and spread to the road.”
Iwao Sakai, 65, an unemployed man who owns the house, lives there with his wife in her 60s and their two sons in their 20s and 30s. Police said the four were all pulled from the residence, but were later pronounced dead.
Police suspect they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The four were found unconscious on the second floor of the house, according to the Higashi-Murayama Police Station. Police believe that the blaze broke out on the first floor, which burned out of control.
“Firefighters sprayed water on the fire, but it was burning even more fiercely," said another nearby resident in his 50s. "I was so terrified that I couldn’t even get near the site. I’m worried about the safety of the couple who live there because I became acquainted with them at a meeting of the residents’ association several years ago.”
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A two-story house in Higashi-Murayama, western Tokyo, is destroyed in a fire that broke out at around 3:15 a.m. on May 9. The fire was extinguished roughly two hours later, leaving four residents dead. (Provided by a nearby resident)
