Fire Engulfs Long-Established Inn in Eastern Japan

June 6, 2018

Maebashi , Gunma Pref.- A fire engulfed a "ryokan" Japanese-style inn established over 500 years ago in the Ikaho hot spring resort in Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture, eastern Japan, on Tuesday night, local authorities said.

Around 9 p.m. (1 p.m. GMT), local firefighters received an emergency call from the inn, Chigira Jinsentei, saying that the building was on fire.

The blaze burned some 360 square meters of the inn and was extinguished some two hours after it broke out, according to the local fire department in Shibukawa.

A woman with links to the inn was taken to hospital for a throat burn, but some 20 guests and employees of the inn evacuated and suffered no injuries, the fire department said.

The fire is believed to have broken out on the second floor of a wooden building within the premises of the inn. The fire department is investigating the cause of the fire.

The inn appears in novel "Hototogisu," written by Roka Tokutomi, a novelist in the 1868-1912 Meiji era. Tokutomi was a frequent user of the inn.

Located at the center of the Ikaho hot spring resort district, the inn is surrounded by many inns and hotels. Jiji Press