Asia-Pacific News
Suicides in Japan top 30,000 for 14th year
Jan 10, 2012, 11:42 GMT
Tokyo - The number of people who killed themselves in Japan in 2011 declined 3.7 per cent from a year earlier to 30,513 people, but it exceeded 30,000 for the 14th year in a row, the National Police Agency said Tuesday.
The agency said in a preliminary report that 68.4 per cent of the suicides were men.
On average, 84 suicides took place per day, which suggested that about 900 people contemplate suicide on any given day, experts estimated.
Japan's protracted economic downturns were considered mainly responsible for the rise of suicides since 1998 when their number climbed above 30,000 for the first time.
In 2010, those without a job made up 58.9 per cent of the year's suicides.
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