AsiaFile

Even as Japanese retreat for their Golden Day holidays — one of the few sanctioned vacation periods the nation permits — the scourge of suicide is again rearing its ugly head.

A year ago, the Japanese news media focused on the newest “trendy” way to take your life — through an Internet-guided assignation. Now comes word that young adults are now drawn to the use of hydrogen sulfide, a chemical compound cheaply obtained, to speed their exit from this world.

Some 80 people in Kochi prefecture were evacuated from their homes last week after a neighbor, aged 14, apparently killed herself using hydrogen sulfide. The teenager posted a note on her front door saying, “Gas being emitted. Don’t open.”

The incident reflects an increase in suicides committed by inhaling hydrogen sulfide, a trend that has been pushed by Web sites explaining how to create the poison gas.

Earlier this month, the Kyoto Prefectural Police ordered 23 Internet providers to erase sites that describe ways of committing suicide, but all of the content has not been deleted yet, the Kyodo News wire reported.

On April 17, a man killed himself in the same manner in a condominium in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, forcing 39 people in 14 households in the same complex to evacuate.

On April 12, nine people were hospitalized after a man killed himself using the gas in a neighborhood in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture.

In July last year, a male university student who took his life using hydrogen sulfide accidentally killed his mother and brother in the process. Police and rescue team members who rushed to the scene also had to be treated.

Unfortunately, the Japanese media tends to focus on the method young people are using to kill themselves, not on the motives.