Firefighters are seen in front of a building where a fire broke out in Osaka, western Japan December 17, 2021 in this photo taken by Kyodo. (Via Reuters)

At least 24 people have lost their lives after a fire swept through a building in a shopping district in the Japanese city of Osaka, with police reportedly considering the incident a possible arson.

The fatalities took place on Friday after the blaze broke out on the fourth floor of the eight-storey building, which houses a psychiatry clinic near the Osaka’s main station in the center of the city.

The national broadcaster NHK said the fire started shortly after the clinic opened for business at 10 a.m. (0100 GMT) and was mostly extinguished within 30 minutes.

The municipal fire department is investigating the cause of the fire. I have received a report that Osaka police is investigating the fire as a possible arson, regional governor Hirofumi Yoshimura said on Twitter.

Japanese media said a man in his 50s or 60s had allegedly dispersed a liquid to start the blaze.

A young woman who witnessed the fire told NHK that she had seen a woman trapped on the fourth floor, saying, She leaned out (from a window) and was saying things like ’Please help’... She seemed very weak. Maybe she inhaled lots of smoke.

Other floors of the building are occupied by a beauty salon, a clothes shop and an English-language school, according to the NHK.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida offered his sincere condolences to the victims and sympathy to those injured in the incident.

We must get to the bottom of this horrible case. We must clarify the cause and how it happened. And we must take measures to prevent the same thing from happening again, he underlined.

Earlier on Friday, an Osaka fire department official feared 27 of the 28 people injured in the blaze had died.

The latest fire came more than two years after an arsonist allegedly set fire to a studio of Kyoto Animation in the nearby historical capital, killing 36 people and injuring 33 other victims in one of the deadliest mass murders in Japan’s modern history.