Pungent Odor Sickens Several People in Tokyo’s Ginza

Tokyo, May 25 (Jiji Press)–Twenty-six people reported throat pain and other symptoms after a pungent odor spread in the Ginza Six shopping complex in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward on Monday, according to the Metropolitan Police Department and the Tokyo Fire Department. Of them, 25 were taken to hospital. They were all conscious. At around noon, the police received an emergency call reporting a pungent odor and people coughing near an automated teller machine in a bank branch on the ground floor of the building. Investigative sources said that a man allegedly discharged a tear gas spray believed to contain capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their heat, before fleeing on foot. Police are also investigating reports of a dispute between foreigners at the scene in the busy shopping district, where ambulances and police vehicles rushed. “There was no smell, but the air felt wrong,” said a woman in her 50s who called an ambulance. “People walking past the bank were all covering their mouths.” She said she felt a numbing sensation in her throat near the entrance of the ATM area and evacuated outside. Another woman in her 50s, who lives nearby and regularly uses the bank, said: “I wondered what happened. It’s frightening.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]