A fire broke out Monday at a house within the premises of the late former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka’s residence in Tokyo, authorities said.
His daughter and former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and her husband, Naoki, a former defense minister, were in the compound at the time of the incident but evacuated safely, police said.
The fire started at a two-story house, and Makiko Tanaka, 79, was quoted by the police as saying she was lighting incense sticks in the house. The house was destroyed by the blaze, which also burnt an adjacent wooded area, according to firefighters.
The police received a call that smoke could be seen near the former prime minister’s residence in the capital’s Bunkyo Ward at around 3:20 p.m.
“Red flames came out from the house so vigorously that it took a long time to get it under control,” a man who was passing by said.
The compound is located about 1.5 kilometers east of Mejiro Station in a residential area. A university and hotel are nearby.
The residence, which stands in a prime location in central Tokyo, was viewed as a symbol of Kakuei Tanaka’s power and financial muscle. It was a venue of the so-called Lockheed corruption scandal over sales of U.S. aircraft decades ago.