At least 24 dead in suspected arson attack on Japanese medical clinic

Rescue officials respond in Japan.
(Image credit: BUDDHIKA WEERASINGHE/AFP via Getty Images)

At least 24 are dead after a medical clinic in the Japanese city of Osaka caught fire on Friday in "one of the deadliest blazes in Japan in about two decades," The Washington Post reports.

Osaka police are investigating the incident and working to determine whether it was an accident or arson, per CNN. The blaze reportedly began in a psychiatric care clinic on the building's fourth floor, where a patient in his 50s or 60s "was seen holding a paper bag with liquid leaking from it," the Post reports, per Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese news outlet. The man, now the potential arson suspect, was in the hospital in critical condition as of Friday evening in Japan.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.