Japanese girl's suicide puts 10 in hospital

A 14-year-old Japanese girl killed herself by mixing soap powder with cleanser, releasing fumes that also made 90 people in her block of flats ill, police said today, as they grappled with a spate of similar suicides.

None of the sick neighbours in Konan, southern Japan, was severely injured, although about 10 were hospitalised, authorities said.

The deadly hydrogen sulphide gas escaped from the girl’s bathroom window and entered neighbouring apartments.

The girl’s suicide last night was part of a recent spate of similar deaths that experts say have been encouraged by internet suicide sites. A 31-year-old man outside Tokyo killed himself inside a car early today by mixing detergent and bath salts, police said.

A local police spokesman refused to give further details, but Kyodo News agency reported the man put a sign reading “Stay Away” on the car window.

The method has alarmed officials because of the danger that bystanders can be hurt.

“It’s easy and everyone can do it,” said Yasuaki Shimizu, director of Lifelink, a Tokyo-based group specialising in preventing suicides. “Also there is a lot of information teaching people how to do it on the internet.”

Police say they have not tallied the number of detergent-related suicides, but media reports suggest it has reached about 30 this year, including several cases in which others were also made ill.

The 14-year-old girl, whose name was not released by police, followed the pattern of other deaths.

She mixed detergent with a liquid cleanser in her bathroom, police said. The door was closed, and she had put a sign on the outside warning “Gas being emitted”, Kyodo reported.

Most of those sickened nearby complained of sore throats, and about 30 people were evacuated to a nearby sports centre.

Japan’s government has long battled to contain the country’s alarmingly high suicide rate. A total of 32,155 people killed themselves in 2006, giving the country the ninth highest rate in the world, according to the government.

Suicides first passed the 30,000 mark in 1998, near the height of an economic slump that left many bankrupt, jobless and desperate.

Last year the government set a goal of cutting the suicide rate by 20% in 10 years through steps such as reducing unemployment, boosting workplace counselling and filtering websites that promote suicide.