<Anchor>
24 people died in a fire that appeared to be an arson in an eight-story building in downtown Osaka, Japan.
The fire was extinguished within 30 minutes, and most of the victims died from suffocation from the smoke without evacuation.
Correspondent Ahn Sang-woo.
<Reporter>
White smoke billows out through the broken window.
Firefighters struggle to get inside the building.
Today (17th) around 10:20 a.m., a fire broke out in an eight-story building in downtown Osaka, Japan.
[Witness: I was walking nearby around 10:15, and I thought it was strange because there was a little black smoke coming out before.] The
fire was extinguished in 30 minutes after burning the inside of the hospital on the 4th floor of this building.
Of the 28 people injured inside the building, 27 were found in cardiac arrest and taken to hospital, but 24 eventually died.
Most of the victims were said to have been found on the fourth floor, where the fire first occurred, suffocated by smoke.
[Eyewitness: The 4th floor is where the most flames came out.
From there, smoke continued to come out of the vents on the top of the building.]
Witnesses said a man, who appears to be in his 60s during police investigations, entered the hospital and put a paper bag he had near the stove, and the liquid leaked from the envelope caught fire.
Accordingly, the police are looking for a suspect, believing that the fire may have been caused by arson.
The fire was pointed out as the reason for the large number of casualties because the building in the fire was a small complex with clothing stores and English language schools in addition to the hospital, and there was no obligation to install sprinklers and there was only one escape staircase.
(Video coverage: Cheol-min Han, Video editing: Min-gyu Jeon)