Eleven people killed in fire at Japanese seniors welfare facility - NHK

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Eleven people killed in fire at Japanese seniors welfare facility - NHK

 

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

 

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 (£232), 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 organisation 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)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-02-01