Man stabs 4 people at Japanese hospital

A knife-wielding man stabbed three nurses and a policeman at a hospital in western Japan yesterday, police said, the latest stabbing incident in the country.

The nurses were stabbed in the chest and abdomen but their wounds were not life threatening, police said, adding that a policeman was also wounded in his left arm.

Police arrested a 45-year-old male patient who had stabbed one nurse and ran way. The two other nurses and policeman were wounded as they tried to apprehend the man, police said.

Violent crime is rare in Japan where most incidents involve knives or swords due to the country's strict gun laws.

In May, a knife-wielding man slashed at a group of schoolgirls at a bus stop, killing one girl and wounding 16 others in an incident that shocked the nation.

The mass stabbing in the town of Kawasaki, south of the Japanese capital, was a rare attack in a country with one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world, and there was no immediate detail on the suspect's motive.

Local media reported that the suspected attacker, a man in his 50s, had also died of his wounds after turning the knife on himself. Emergency services said at least 16 others had been injured in the attack.