Dozens dead after man sets anime studio on fire: Officials

This picture shows a general view of smoke still coming from an animation company building after a fire in Kyoto on July 18, 2019. (Photo credit JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images)

TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese fire official says the death toll at a Kyoto anime studio fire was 33 after  nobody else was believed to be missing.

Kyoto fire department official Mikihide Daikoku says 36 others have been injured, some of them critically.

Daikoku says firefighters found more than a dozen people presumed dead on the top floor of a three-story building, some of them collapsed on the stairs leading to the roof. 

A man screaming "You die!" burst into the studio and set it on fire early Thursday, authorities said.

Most of those injured were workers at Kyoto Animation, known for mega-hit stories featuring high school girls, with places featured in the stories even becoming "pilgrimage sites" for their fans.

The fire started in the three-story building in Japan's ancient capital after the suspect sprayed an unidentified liquid accelerant, Kyoto prefectural police and fire department officials said.

Kyoto fire department official Kazuhiro Hayashi said  firefighters were still searching inside the building in case anyone else was left behind. Kyoto police said the suspect was injured and taken to a hospital for treatment.

They are investigating the man, who is 41 and not a company employee, on suspicion of arson, police said.

A witness who saw the suspect being approached by police told Japanese networks that the man admitted spreading gasoline and setting a fire with a lighter.

She told NHK public television that the man had burns on his arms and legs and that he was angrily complaining that something of his had been "stolen," possibly by the company.

NHK footage also showed sharp knives police had collected from the scene, though it was not clear if they belonged to the suspect.

Survivors who saw the attacker said he was not their colleague and that he was screaming "(You) die!" when he dumped the liquid and started the fire, according to Japanese media reports.

They said some of the survivors got splashed with the liquid.

Kyoto Animation, better known as KyoAni, was founded in 1981 as an animation and comic book production studio, and its hits include "Lucky Star," "K-On!" and "Haruhi Suzumiya."

The company does not have a major presence outside Japan, though it was hired to provide secondary animation work on a 1998 "Pokemon" feature that appeared in U.S. theaters and a "Winnie the Pooh" video.

Footage on Japan's NHK television showed gray smoke billowing from the charred building. Other footage showed windows blown off.

"There was an explosion, then I heard people shouting, some asking for help," a female witness told TBS TV. "Black smoke was rising from windows on upper floors, then there was a man struggling to crawl out of the window."

Witnesses in the neighborhood said they heard bangs coming from the building, others said they saw people coming out blackened, bleeding, walking barefoot, Kyodo News reported. Rescue officials set up an orange tent outside the studio building to provide first aid and sort out the injured.

Fire department officials said more than 70 people were in the building at the time of the fire and many of them ran outside.

The fire was the worst mass killing in Japan since a man stabbed and killed 19 people at an assisted living facility in western Tokyo in 2016.

A fire in 2001 in Tokyo's congested Kabukicho entertainment district killed 44 people in its worst known case of arson in modern times. Police never announced an arrest for setting the blaze, though five people were convicted of negligence.

In 2008, 16 people died in a blaze at a movie theater in Osaka, near Kyoto.