World News for Students of English

09-11-2021 07:00

Only weeks after two men were stabbed at Tokyo’s Ueno Station, a knife and arson attack on the city‘s metro has injured 17 people and left one in serious condition.

The attack happened near Shinjuku, the world’s busiest rail station with over 3.5 million daily passengers.

On Sunday evening, witnesses described a man walking through the train cars, waving a blooded knife, dousing parts of the train with an unknown liquid, and then starting a fire. Before seeing the armed assailant, some people thought the fire was a Halloween joke.

Police arrested the 25-year-old man, and he went into custody. The attacker was dressed in Batman’s Joker costume; however, his reasons are still unknown. Local media reported later that the man told authorities that he wanted to kill people so he could be sentenced to death.

Difficult words: arson (the crime of intentionally starting a fire in order to destroy something), douse (to throw water or another liquid on someone or something), assailant (a person who attacks someone violently).

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