TOKYO - Officials in Japan are raising the alarm over what they say its the soaring number of people killing themselves by inhaling toxic fumes from household chemicals.
Japan has long battled a high suicide rate.
But officials say the country is now in the grip of a wave of deaths by people who take their own lives by mixing commonly available household products to form poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas.
The gas can form noxious clouds that also affect those who happen to be nearby, often triggering mass evacuations.
Japanese officials say the number of toxic fume suicides jumped to 876 from January to September, 30 times more than in the same period last year.
Alarmed by the surge, police have launched a crackdown on popular Internet sites that give instructions on how to commit suicide using the method.
Toxic fume suicides are the latest in a string of suicide fads in Japan. Until this year, many suicide cases involved people who found each other on the Internet and committed suicide together, often by sealing themselves in a car and lighting a charcoal-burning brazier.
The number of suicides hit 33,093 in 2007, a 2.9 per cent increase from the previous year and the second-highest annual tally on record, according to the National Police Agency.
To curb the high suicide rate, the government has earmarked $220 million for anti-suicide programs to help those with depression and other mental health problems.
Japan has the eighth-highest suicide rate in the world, according to the World Health Organization.
