Japanese investigators believe only escape route blocked in deadly clinic fire by Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese cabinet official said on Sunday it had blocked the victims of a fire at a 24-dead clinic last week from a single escape, and conducted an emergency inspection of similar buildings.

In an alleged arson attack, a man entered a clinic on the fourth floor of the western city of Osaka, according to police, carrying a bag of liquid that caught fire after being placed next to a heater and kicked.

“It is believed that the fire broke out near the stairs, and that was the only way out,” Interior Minister Yasushi Kane told reporters, citing an ongoing investigation.

Japanese firefighters have been ordered to inspect about 30,000 multi-storey commercial buildings with a single staircase, he added.

The 61-year-old suspect was a patient at the clinic and is in critical condition at the hospital, the NHK public channel reported. The man’s name has been spread and published in the Japanese media, an unusual step when no arrests have yet been made.

The fire is one of the deadliest memories in Japan of a fire that killed 36 people in a Kyoto animation studio in 2019. A 2001 fire at a building in the Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo killed 44 people.