A 31-year-old man has been arrested in Japan after his two-year-old son died inside a washing machine at their home in Ibaraki prefecture. Yuki Yamaguchi, a temporary worker from Tsuchiura, north of Tokyo, was taken into custody on suspicion of abandoning his responsibility for protection.
The toddler suffocated after falling head first into the machine last April, according to police. The machine, which was not operating at the time, was kept in the child's room and stood around 90cm high. Investigators believe the boy climbed onto the machine using nearby footholds before falling in and being unable to escape.
Police stated that Mr Yamaguchi left his son in the machine for nearly 20 minutes, between 10am and 10.20am on 27 April, before calling emergency services at 10.29am to report that his son was not breathing. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported that Mr Yamaguchi told police, “I left him there without helping him,” referring to his son.
In a similar case in 2018, a five-year-old boy died after being found unconscious inside a washer-dryer at his home in Osaka. He was taken to hospital in cardio-respiratory arrest and later pronounced dead.
