Suicide is the latest to occur in public view at downtown Tokyo rail hub.
Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station is the busiest rail hub not just in Tokyo, but in the entire world. With nearly a dozen train and subway lines converging at the west side of Tokyo’s downtown district, Shinjuku station has, by some counts, as many as 200 exits, but one of them became the site of a shocking tragedy on Monday.
At approximately 12:15 on the afternoon of January 6, a call was placed to 110, Japan’s police emergency number. The caller reported that “a young man with a muffler hooked around his neck [is] about to jump,” with the other end of his scarf tied to a pedestrian overpass that leads over a busy road and connects the south face of Shinjuku Station to an outdoor plaza known as Southern Terrace.
By the time officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrived on the scene, the man, later confirmed to be in his 30s, had jumped and gone into cardiac arrest, and he was pronounced dead by hospital staff at the facility he was rushed to. Investigators from the TMP’s Shinjuku Precinct say the man was suffering from mental illness, and an acquaintance, who had been dining with the man just before his suicide, told officers that he had said “I’m going to die after this,” during their meal.
This marks the second time in recent years that the overpass has been the site of a suicide, following a self-immolation incident in 2014.
If you or someone you know is in Japan and having suicidal thoughts, there are people here to help. Click here for more info.
Source: Sankei Shimbun via Yahoo! Japan News via Jin, Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
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