1 killed, 2 injured in Japan park blasts

TOKYO – One person was killed and at least two injured by two near-simultaneous blasts in a Japanese park on Sunday, the local fire department said.

The explosions occurred at a park in Utsunomiya, some 100 kilometers north of Tokyo, shortly after 11:30 a.m., a fire department spokesman said. It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts.

“One person was found dead,” the fire department spokesman told AFP, without elaborating further.

Public broadcaster NHK said a body badly damaged in the blast was found at a bicycle parking space for the park.

“The sex and ages of the three are not known yet,” another local fire department official said, adding one blast hit a car parking lot for the park.

NHK footage showed a car completely charred, as fire fighters poured water on it.

A man told NHK that he “smelled gunpowder in the area” after the explosions./rga