TOKYO, Dec 26 — Fifteen people were injured in a stabbing attack in a rubber factory in central Japan today during which an unspecified liquid was also sprayed, emergency officials said.

“All fifteen people were sent to hospital,” a firefighting department official in the city of Mishima, south-west of Tokyo, told AFP.

The official, declining to be named, said that of the 15 injuries, eight were the result of stabbing and seven due to the liquid.

Some local media outlets, quoting unnamed sources, said the liquid appeared to be bleach.

Five of the victims were classified as “requiring emergency care” by emergency workers at the scene, but all have remained conscious, the official said.

Tomoharu Sugiyama, another official from the firefighting department, told AFP a call was initially received at about 4:30 pm (0730 GMT) from a rubber factory saying “people were stabbed by someone” and that a “spray-like liquid” had been used.

Japanese media, including public broadcaster NHK, reported that police had arrested a man on suspicion of attempted murder.

The Asahi Shimbun daily quoted investigative sources as saying that the man in his 30s was connected to the factory.

He was wearing what appeared to be a gas mask, the newspaper and other media said.

Asahi Shimbun also said that he was apparently armed with what it described as a survival knife.

NHK said the man told police that he was 38 years old.

A fleet of ambulances were dispatched to the Yokohama Rubber Co factory, which according to its website makes tyres for trucks and buses.

NHK aerial footage showed emergency workers and vehicles including fire trucks parked outside the factory.

Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world’s toughest gun laws.

However, there are occasional stabbing attacks and even shootings, including the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.

A Japanese man was sentenced to death in October for a shooting and stabbing rampage that killed four people, including two police officers, in 2023.

A 43-year-old man was also charged with attempted murder in May over a knife attack at Tokyo’s Toda-mae metro station.

Japan remains shaken by the memory of a major subway attack in 1995 when members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin gas on trains, killing 14 people and making more than 5,800 ill.

On March 20, 1995, five members of the Aum cult dropped bags of Nazi-developed sarin nerve agent inside morning commuter trains on March 20, 1995, piercing the pouches with sharpened umbrella tips before fleeing. — AFP