Japan | Six killed in apartment blaze in Hitachi

Tokyo: At least six people, including five children,lost their lives in a blaze in a three-storey apartment building in Hitachi city of Japan on Friday, a media report said.

The incident took place at around 0450 hours and took almost an hour to be extinguished.

The blaze was started by a 32-year-old man who surrendered himself to the police. He claimed that he deliberately started the fire.

"I set fire to my house," a police official quoted the man as saying. He, too, was injured in the blaze. "My wife and five children were in my house," he told the police.

Those killed in the blaze were a woman, four boys aged three to six, and an 11-year-old girl. The bodies were found in a room on the first floor of the apartment.