Tokyo - Police had yesterday identified all but one of 44 victims of a blaze in Tokyo's most popular entertainment district, but found no clues as to what caused the country's worst fire in more than two decades.
The fire, early on Saturday, raged through a four-storey building in the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku. Most of the victims died from smoke inhalation.
Eleven bodies were found in a Mahjong parlour on the building's third floor and those of 28 other victims were located in a restaurant on the fourth floor, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Five others were found on lower floors and the roof.
Many of the dead were in their 20s and 30s. Today bouquets, bottles of sake and other tokens of grief were stacked in front of the building's entrance. Passers-by stopped to bow their heads and clasp their hands in prayer for the deceased.