At least 19 people died in the incident and dozens more were injured after the man – reportedly in his 20s – launched the night time attack.
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The Tokyo Shimbun news website reported that the man turned himself in to authorities. “I’m very anxious, but don’t know what happened inside as I’m not allowed to enter”, a resident nearby told local television NHK.
Local media named him as Satoshi Uematsu, though police have yet to confirm that.
“I want to get rid of the disabled from this world”.
Twenty-nine emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported.
A police officer is seen outside the facility for the disabled following the attack in Sagamihara, Kanagawa prefecture.
Details are still emerging but it is the worst mass stabbing in Japan in recent years.
The Sagamihara fire department has said 19 people were killed in the attack Tuesday morning.
In June 2001, eight children were killed when a former janitor entered an Ikeda elementary school in Osaka and began stabbing students at random.
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.
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The attack comes four days after a 17-year-old Afghan refugee slashed five people on a train in Germany before being shot dead by police.
