A firefighter inspects a facility to support senior people on welfare, where a fire occurred, in Sapporo, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo on February 1, 2018. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. MANDATORY CREDIT. JAPAN OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN JAPAN.
February 1, 2018
TOKYO (Reuters) – Eleven people were killed and five were rescued in a fire at a facility to support senior people on welfare in northern Japan late on Wednesday, public broadcaster NHK said.
The 16 elderly people were living in the three-storey wooden facility in Sapporo, where they paid a monthly rent of 36,000 yen ($330), NHK said on Thursday.
Three of the survivors, aged between their fifties and eighties, were being treated in hospital but their condition was not life-threatening, the broadcaster said.
The facility is run by a Sapporo organization that helps those who are on a public assistance by providing food and helping them find jobs, NHK said.
In March 2010, seven people at a nursing home for elderly people with dementia were killed in a fire in Sapporo, Kyodo news agency said.
(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Paul Tait)
