TOKYO - A 14-year-old girl and two other people have been found dead in two days in Japan in apparent suicides by gas cocktails, one case forcing around 120 people to evacuate their homes, police said Thursday.
The teenage girl was reported to be found dead in the bathroom of her apartment in Kochi, southern Japan. There was a sign on the door to the apartment which read "Toxic gas being generated."
Around 120 local residents were forced to flee their homes after complaining of the effect of noxious fumes, police said.
In Shinoyama, near Kobe, a man in his thirties was found dead early Thursday in a car parked at a forest park.
Police found a detergent box and a suicide note inside the car. There was a sign on the car's windshield, reading: "The car is filled with highly dense hydrogen sulfide."
And in the ancient city of Kyoto, a man was found dead late Thursday in a car which had a sign: "Don't open. Dangerous hydrogen sulfide being generated," the Asahi newspaper said on its Internet edition.
All three are reported to have inhaled fatal amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas, which can be produced by using common clothes detergents using methods details of which have been spread on the Internet.
Japanese authorities are battling to bring down the suicide rate in the country, which is one of the highest in the developed world.
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