Tokyo - Police launched a major investigation into suspected mass murder yesterday after dozens of people ate curry and rice contaminated with cyanide at a neighbourhood festival in western Japan.
Four victims died and 60 were being treated in hospital. Police flooded the small community of Wakayama, 450 km west of Tokyo, with 150 extra officers and began house to house searches for the source of the poison.
"We have yet to make any final determination about the case, but it appears that someone tainted the food or eating utensils with cyanide," a police spokesman said.