Seven young people who committed suicide in a Japanese forest last week had met on the Web, reports David McNeill from Tokyo

Many Japanese felt a weary sense of déjà vu last week as they watched pictures of seven bodies lying under police sheets, in a forest north of Tokyo, after an apparent group suicide. Since February last year there have been an estimated 50-plus similar deaths in a bizarre Internet-fuelled phenomenon that has many here wondering what is happening to the nation's young.

Like the four men and three women who died last week, most of the victims were in their teens or 20s and appear to have sought each other out via websites that arrange suicide pacts. The easily found sites allow the suicidal to swap e-mail addresses and offer advice on the surest, least painful ways to die.

Many opt for carbon-monoxide poisoning in sealed vehicles, often in secluded or scenic areas, like the four young men who died last June while watching the sun rise from a car at the foot of Mount Fuji or the two women who were also found last week at the gates of a shrine. All appear to have met their companions in death for the first time just hours before their suicides.

Last week's incident has again led to predictable calls for more careful monitoring of cyberspace and even for the word "suicide" to be banned from search engines, but these measures would have little impact on Japan's grim reputation as one of the world's suicide capitals.

Last year 94 people in Japan took their own lives every day, setting a record of 34,427 that broke the previous high of 33,048, set in 1999. Since the Asian crash of 1997-8, when the statistics jumped 35 per cent, suicides have claimed three times more people than traffic accidents.

In Japan's huge rail network, where about 1,000 depressed commuters now leap to their deaths each year, steel guards have gone up on some main lines and mirrors have appeared opposite platforms, in an effort to deter potential jumpers; a "human incident", as it is euphemistically called, means long delays and tens of thousands of late workers.

A suicide manual that lists effective ways of ending it all - including hanging, electrocution and pills - has sold more than a million copies. In true Japanese style it compares these methods in terms of the pain and trouble they cause to others; predictably, jumping in front of a train is given a maximum rating of five.

The dramatic rise in suicides forced the health ministry to bring out a package of proposals at the end of 2002, including a drastic boost in mental healthcare facilities. But Japan still has far fewer psychiatrists than other advanced countries, and family doctors routinely misdiagnose mental illness.

The situation is worsened by cultural attitudes: many men decide to tough it out rather than see a specialist, says Yukio Saito, who runs Inochi no Denwa, Japan's largest telephone-helpline network. "The concept of gaman" - endurance - "is very strong here. A lot of Japanese men work too hard and don't know how to say no to demands for more."

A health ministry survey last year found that more than half of the workers recognised as having committed suicide due to work-related stress between 1999 and 2002 had been working at least 100 hours overtime a month. "This is a suicide epidemic," says Saito. "We are not doing enough to help people who are suffering in silence."

Japan is not unique. South Korea has also experienced a wave of suicide pacts, and the Republic has seen a 45 per cent increase in suicides over the past decade. One researcher claims it is now the most common cause of death in Irish men aged between 15 and 24, indicating that growing numbers of people find modern life alienating, wherever they live.

But, at 24.1 per 100,000 population, Japan has the highest per-capita suicide rate in the developed world, and nobody here is blaming the decline of religion or a rise in alcohol abuse. Most point to other factors, including a steady toll of bankruptcies and corporate layoffs - the suicide statistics are heavily weighted by the middle-aged and retired salarymen who helped stoke Japan's miracle growth in the 1970s and 1980s but who have since borne the brunt of restructuring the world's second-largest economy.

As in Ireland, the most worrying aspect of the crisis for Japanese authorities is the rising number of younger casualties - nearly 8,000 people in their 20s and 30s killed themselves in 2003 (up almost 1,000 from the previous year), making suicide one of the leading causes of death for young Japanese in the prime of life.

In a country where suicide is less taboo than in Christian societies, older Japanese often reluctantly understand its pull on people who feel they have no options left, but most are bewildered by news of young people taking their lives before they have begun to live them. Many of these youngsters are drawn from the ranks of hikkikomori, social recluses who have locked themselves in their rooms, sometimes for years on end.

The hikkikomori phenomenon has been fuelled by complex social factors, including growing rejection of Japan's rigid education system and the decline of traditional full-time employment. Many recluses are linked to the outside world only through the electronic umbilical cord of their computers, which they use to find like-minded folk.

Yesterday dozens of young Japanese could be found discussing suicide on online chat rooms. One message read: "If you are thinking about killing yourself, please reply." Another read: "I'm in my early 20s and I want to die easily. I can go anywhere in Japan, but I don't have a car or sleeping pills."

Fittingly, perhaps, one of the last acts of the suicidal is often to e-mail somebody: a text message to a friend from one of the seven in last week's group suicide sparked the police search that uncovered their bodies. Several times in the past year the police have stumbled on semi- asphyxiated young people just in time, after similar messages were sent. This time they were not so lucky.

If you would like to talk about an issue raised in this article, you can call the Aware helpline on 1890-303302 or the Samaritans helpline on 1850-609090