The facility is located some 50 km from central Tokyo in a residential area surrounded by houses and an elementary school.
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Yamazaki said victims were attacked at two buildings – on both floors in one building and in the first floor of the other.
An apparently disturbed man arrested in a stabbing rampage at a care facility for mentally disabled people near Tokyo on Tuesday had earlier warned authorities that he might carry out the attack, according to police and local news media.
Sagamihara fire department official Kunio Takano says the youngest victim was 19 and the oldest was 70, both women. No further details were available.
A police auto patrols at night in front of the Tsukui Yamayuri-en, a facility for the mentally disables where a number of people were killed and dozens injured in a knife attack in Sagamihara, outside Tokyo Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
Nineteen residents have been killed in a knife attack at a care centre for people with mental disabilities in the Japanese city of Sagamihara.
He then broke in by shattering a window at 2:10 a.m. local time, according to a prefectural health official, and then set off to slash patients’ throats.
Security camera footage played on TV news programs showed a man driving up in a black auto and carrying several knives to the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility in Sagamihara, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Tokyo. Because gun ownership is highly restricted, mass stabbings and poisonings are more common, CNN’s Paula Hancocks said. He reportedly wrote that he would conduct an attack “during night shift hours when fewer workers are there” and said that he would “tie workers with bands so that they can not move and communicate with outside people”.
He said it would launch a “revolution” that would “stimulate the economy and prevent World War III”.
The Kyodo news service published a letter that it reported had been delivered by Uematsu to the office of Japanese lawmaker Tadamori Oshima on February 15.
It is Japan’s deadliest mass killing in decades. “I will kill 470 disabled people”. Police said Uematsu later drove himself to a police station where he surrendered without incident.
The facility’s name means “mountain lily garden” after the local flower that is in bloom at this time of year.
The suspect had been working at the physically challenged facility since 2012. “I still can’t understand why it happened here”. “We are all very shocked”.
Her daughter, Honoka, said: “He had a cheerful impression”.
“That kind of person can’t defend themselves”. Neighbors were shocked to hear of his involvement in the incident.
The facility is regarded as a core of the local community’s social welfare program and actively cares for people with relatively heavy disabilities who can not be accepted by other care facilities.
The suspect has been named as 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu. The worker had worked at the facility until early February although no reason why he stopped. Three people were killed by the truck, then he stabbed 12 people, four of whom died.
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Investigators have not confirmed the motive of the attack yet.
