Hostage taker among 3 killed in Tokyo

Black smoke raises from an office building as a man took eight hostages and set fire to the building in the central Japanese city of Nagoya yesterday. At least three people died and more casualties feared in the blast that wrecked the fourth floor where a man had taken eight hostages and spread a flammable liquid, threatening to ignite it, an official said. Photo: AFP

Police said Noboru Beppu, 52, a contract worker for the Keikyubin courier firm who had entered the company's fourth floor office demanding payment of unpaid wages, was among the dead.

Reports said Beppu was armed with a knife and a bow and arrows and had scattered fuel threatening to set fire to the office in Nagoya, Japan's fourth largest city, 270 km southwest of Tokyo.

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Police said eight male employees were taken hostage after female staff were allowed to leave, but seven of the men were freed moments before a blast which engulfed the office in a fireball, shattering windows and sending glass flying.