HIGASHI HIROSHIMA, Japan — A man armed with a knife hijacked a bus carrying about 20 people Wednesday in southwestern Japan and stabbed three women passengers, one of them fatally. Two other hostages escaped by jumping out of the moving vehicle.
Police cars chased the 40-seat bus down Sanyo Expressway in Yamaguchi Prefecture as the hijacker held the knife against the driver's body, according to national and local police.
About five hours after the ordeal, the bus stopped near a tunnel on the highway, and the hijacker released four male passengers, one of them injured, police said.
Police vehicles then blocked the highway in Hiroshima city and forced the bus to drive down a ramp into a nearby parking area, where authorities began negotiations with the hijacker.
Police with a megaphone talked with the unidentified hijacker through an open window. During the negotiations, they persuaded him to free three women, all of whom had been stabbed in the neck, and another passenger escaped.
Police said one of the injured women was taken to Hiroshima University Hospital where she was pronounced dead. The Kyodo News Service gave her age as 68, but other details were unknown.
About eight people remained aboard the bus with the hijacker, police said. Passengers who were freed said the hijacker's knife was about 16 inches long.
Authorities said they had no idea what might have motivated the hijacker, whom they described as a young man. At one point, before the bus stopped, police said they talked with the kidnapper on his cell phone but did not release details on their conversation.
Police said they first found out about the hijacking when a female passenger was let off the bus at a toll booth near the city of Moji to go to the restroom, and she escaped and called authorities.
Afterward, another woman passenger jumped out a window of the bus as it was moving, said Yamaguchi Prefecture police spokesman Junichi Takezaki. The passenger was injured and taken to a nearby hospital, where she told police she saw the hijacker stab and seriously wound at least two passengers before she fled the bus.
Following her escape, a male passenger, Masayuki Kisikawa, also leaped off the moving bus and escaped with light injuries.