Police responded to a call at around 2:30AM local time (1730 GMT Monday) from an employee saying a knife-wielding man broke into the facility in the city of Sagamihara in Kanagawa prefecture and went on a stabbing spree, Kyodo News agency reported.
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Local media reports said, he has been arrested.
About 3 a.m., Uematsu turned himself in at the Sagamihara police station, carrying a bloodstained knife and cloth, officials said.
Kanagawa Governor Yuji Kuroiwa apologizes for having failed to act on the warning signs. “My goal is to euthanize, with their guardians’ consent, seriously disabled people if they can’t live at home or be active in society”, he wrote, referring to the center by name.
An official told Reuters Uematsu had been involuntarily admitted to a medical facility in February when he tried to deliver a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament.
The death toll could make this the worst mass killing in Japan in the post-World War II era. He began working at the Tsukui Yamayuriefacility in 2012, but had not been employed there since February.
The victims ages range from 19-70.
According to the Kyodo news service, alleged killer Satoshi Uematsu threatened an attack nearly identical to the one carried out on Tuesday.
White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that the attack was “all the more repugnant and senseless” as it had occurred at a facility for the disabled.
However, Uematsu was put in hospital earlier this year for nearly two weeks after he said he would kill disabled people. “I sincerely pray for peace for the souls of those killed and extend condolences to the bereaved families as well as those wounded”.
A 73-year-old woman who is related to a facility resident couldn’t hide her shock as she said, “My [relative]’s room is close to the entrance”.
Michael Gillan Peckitt, a lecturer in clinical philosophy at Osaka University in central Japan, and an expert on disabled people’s issues in Japan, said the attack speaks more about Uematsu than the treatment of the disabled in Japan. “That’s why so many died”, taxi driver Susumu Fujimura said of the victims.
A local official said police recovered a bag with several knives and at least one was stained with blood.
Mass killings are relatively rare in Japan, which has extremely strict gun-control laws. Eight children were stabbed to death at their school by a former janitor in 2001.
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And in 2008 a man ploughed a rental truck into a crowd of shoppers in Tokyo’s bustling Akihabara district before he stabbed passers-by, killing seven people and injuring 10 others. Because gun ownership is highly restricted, mass stabbings and poisonings are more common, CNN’s Paula Hancocks said.
