A shooter, thought to be in his 80s, is understood to have taken a group of people hostage at a post office in Japan, just a mile away from a shooting at a hospital where two people were injured.
Local media has reported that at least two female post office workers in Warabi city, on the the south-eastern coast of Japan, have been taken hostage and it was reported by a local paper that the gunman could have as many as 10 people with him.
There are also reports the shooter could be carrying paraffin or kerosene, as fears grow over large fires being started.
Japanese police on Tuesday surrounded a post office where a man with a gun was holed up, and said the case may be linked to an earlier apparent shooting at a nearby hospital in which two people were wounded.
Saitama Prefectural Police said two men – a doctor in his 40s and a patient in his 60s – were wounded after blasts resembling gunfire were heard at a general hospital in the city of Toda, just north of Tokyo. Police did not give details of how exactly the two people were injured.
