Rooms filled with deadly gas and blotchy corpses? Welcome to Japan's gas panic

At a time when the country should be winding down to relax over the Golden Week holiday period, Japan is in a state of toxic gas panic, according to Nikkan Gendai (5/1).

On April 29 alone, five people in separate incidents across the country took their own lives by inhaling a lethal dose of hydrogen sulfide. That brought the April total to 59 self-inflicted deaths resulting from the gas, which is easily created by mixing various detergents.

Online, hydrogen sulfide has earned a reputation for providing a quick and painless death, but those who have to deal with the aftermath say it's anything but the case.

"When hydrogen sulfide enters the bloodstream, it mixes with hemoglobin and turns the blood green. All the skin goes blotchy, and the body looks repulsive," a police insider tells Nikkan Gendai. "And, if by chance the victim survives the suicide attempt, inhaling the gas for even a short time ensures they're going to have massive, irreparable brain damage."

Hydrogen sulfide deaths don't only affect those who choose their demise in that manner. When a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Kochi Prefecture ended her life that way in April, fumes seeped out from the bathroom where she took her own life and left another 14 people, including her mother, requiring hospitalization. In another case in Takamatsu, mass evacuations were needed.

Golden Week, the lowbrow afternoon tabloid opines, should be a time for the country to get away from it all. But with the growing propensity for people to take their own lives and endanger others Japan is going to be on edge, wondering where the hydrogen sulfide scourge is going to strike next. (By Ryann Connell)

(Mainichi Japan) May 4, 2008