Two people have been killed and more than ten injured in an explosion in an office building in the Japanese city of Nagoya where a man had been holding several hostages.
Television pictures showed smoke billowing from the third floor offices of a delivery company in the city, 170 miles west of Tokyo. Some screams were heard coming from the building.
Police said a knife-wielding man - who appeared to be in his forties or fifties - had taken eight employees hostage, doused the area with a flammable liquid and threatened to set the building on fire. He demanded that he be paid three months' worth of back wages.
Kyodo news agency said seven of the eight hostages were released before the blast.
The hostage-taker and an office manager were both thought to have been in the building when the explosion occurred, state broadcaster NHK said.