A high school in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, became the scene of an unusual emergency on Wednesday morning when a student allegedly sprayed tear gas inside a classroom. Police arrested a male second-year student at Osaka University of Commerce Sakai High School on suspicion of the attack.
The incident happened at around 10:40 a.m. during a break between lessons, in a classroom on the second floor of the building. Twenty-four students and staff reported symptoms including sore throats and coughing after the gas dispersed. The response was substantial for a school incident: the local fire department sent 12 fire trucks and five ambulances to the scene.
According to police, the student told them he found the spray can lying on the ground outside the school and sprayed it inside the classroom 'just for fun', but that the situation got out of hand. No life-threatening injuries have been reported, and the investigation is continuing.
For anyone travelling in or around Osaka, this is a local police matter rather than a safety trend — isolated school incidents like this are rare and don't affect visitors to the city or its surroundings. Sakai itself sits just south of central Osaka and is best known to travellers for its ancient burial mounds, including the UNESCO-listed Mozu Tombs, and for its long tradition of knife-making. Osaka, Japan's second-largest metropolitan area, remains one of the country's most visited cities for its food scene, nightlife and easy access to Kyoto, Nara and Kobe.
The story is a useful reminder, if nothing else, of how thoroughly Japanese emergency services respond to even small-scale incidents — a large fire and ambulance deployment was on site within a short window of the morning alarm. Travellers in Japan can expect fast, efficient handling of any emergency they might encounter, whether calling 110 for police or 119 for fire and ambulance services.