Woman injures man in attempt to commit suicide in Tokyo

Photo: Woman injures man in attempt to commit suicide in Tokyo

A passer-by was knocked by a woman who jumped from the rooftop of a Tokyo department to commit suicide, authorities said.

Responding to phone calls from passers-by, police found a woman in her 20s and a 37-year old man down and bleeding on a sidewalk in front of the store near Tokyo's bustling Ikebukuro station Tuesday afternoon, local police spokesman Tetsuhiko Kanehara said.

Both were taken to a nearby hospital, where the as-yet unidentified woman was pronounced dead on arrival, Kanehara said. The man remains unconscious, he said, adding that his name is being withheld on privacy grounds.

Police believe the woman broke a lock to enter a restricted area on the department store's 8th floor rooftop and then climbed over a 3-meter (10-foot) high-steel fence before making her jump, Kanehara said. Security camera footage showed her entering the restricted area, he added.

Japan has one of the industrial world's highest suicide rates, with more than 32,000 people taking their own lives in 2006.

Last week, another woman leaped from an 11-story apartment elsewhere in Tokyo, also in an apparent suicide that resulted in serious injury to a passer-by below.