“I woke up at about 3am because of the blaring noise of the sirens,” he told AFP.
Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world, and attacks involving weapons of any kind are unusual.
The killing is believed to be the worst such incident since 1938, when a man went on a killing spree armed with an axe, sword and rifle — killing 30 people.
But the country has seen outbursts of random as well as planned violence.
In 2001, eight children at a primary school in Osaka were stabbed to death.
And in 2008 a man ploughed a rental truck into a crowd of shoppers in Tokyo’s bustling Akihabara district before he stabbed passers-by, killing seven people and injuring 10 others.
After that rampage, Japan banned possession of double-edged knives with blades longer than 5.5 centimetres (about two inches).
The nation’s most notorious attack came in 1995, when members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system.
Thirteen people were killed and thousands of commuters fell ill in a crime that deeply dented the national sense of security.
But Japan has recently seen an increasing number of cases of attacks on the weak and vulnerable.
In February, a former nursing home worker was arrested for allegedly throwing an 87-year-old resident to his death from a balcony, and reportedly admitted killing two more elderly people in the same way.
Close Japanese ally the United States quickly offered sympathy.
White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that the attack was “all the more repugnant and senseless” as it had occurred at a facility for the disabled.S
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