WARNING: This article contains details that readers may find distressing
A girl jumped from a shopping mall in Yokohama, Japan and hit pedestrians below, killing two people.
The 17-year-old high school student jumped from a building in a crowded shopping district on Saturday night and hit a 32-year-old woman who was out with friends.
The two were immediately taken to hospital at around 18:00 local time (09:00 GMT), where the girl died an hour later. The woman also died shortly afterwards.
It’s unclear why she took her own life, but according to official statistics, more people under 18 take their own lives in Japan on September 1, the eve of the new semester, than on any other day.
Last year, 513 children committed suicide in Japan, with “school problems” considered the most common factor.
Students who do not want to return to school are called “futoko,” or “non-schoolers.”
According to a previous survey by the Ministry of Education, the main reasons why these futoko avoid going to school include family situations, personal problems with friends and bullying.
In recent years, authorities and media organizations have tried to raise public awareness of the challenges students face at this time of year.
For example, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK launched an event on Twitter called “August 31 Night”.
The latest incident in Yokohama mirrors a similar incident in 2020, when a 17-year-old boy jumped from the roof of a shopping mall in a busy area of Osaka and killed a 19-year-old female student.
At the time, the boy was charged with manslaughter after his death, meaning his family owed compensation to the families of the victims he killed. However, the charges were dropped shortly after.
Authorities have so far not expressed any responsibility for Saturday night’s deaths.
While the suicide rate among Japan’s general population is slowly declining, the suicide rate among Japan’s young people is rising.
Japan is the only G7 country where suicide is the leading cause of death among teenagers.
Additional reporting by Chika Nakayama in Tokyo.
