Crime & Courts

2 Dead after Fire at Sauna Facility in Tokyo

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
The Metropolitan Police Department

Jiji Press

12:20 JST, December 16, 2025

Tokyo, Dec. 15 (Jiji Press)—A fire broke out at a sauna facility in the Akasaka district of Tokyo’s Minato Ward on Monday, leaving two customers dead.

At around 12:25 p.m., police received a report that an emergency bell went off at the facility.

According to police and firefighters, a bench in a sauna unit was burned, and a man and a woman, believed to be in their 30s, were found naked and unconscious near the door of the sauna unit. They were rushed to hospital but died later.

The fire occurred on the third floor of a five-story building, and was extinguished in about an hour. Police are investigating the circumstances and causes of death.

The facility has several private rooms equipped with sauna units and water baths on the second to fourth floors of the building, according to its website. The two customers had reserved a room for two hours from 11 a.m.

Television celebrity Panzetta Girolamo is listed as the facility’s general manager.