Five people were hospitalized after a man accidentally set off an anti-bear spray in a city-center post office in Nagoya, reports and officials said, as Japan?grapples with a sharp rise in maulings.
A foreign national, who was not named, apologized and told police that he discharged the repellant unintentionally, the reports said.
¡°Eight people felt sick, and of those five were sent to the hospital. But there was no report of serious injuries or illness,¡± fire department official Ryohei Asano said after the mishap on Wednesday.
At least five people have been killed by bears in Japan since April 1 after a record 13 deaths last fiscal year.
This week, authorities said they were investigating a sixth possible fatality after a man¡¯s body with bite marks was found in a mountainous area in the north.
Environment Ministry data dating back to April 2017 shows that this year is the first to see more than two deaths in the April-June quarter.
Scientists attribute the sharp rise in incidents to an increase in the animals¡¯ population and a declining number of people in rural areas.
The animals are also increasingly?encroaching into towns and cities.
In June, dozens of police, hunters and city officials needed four days to trap a bear roaming Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, forcing mass school closures.
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