'Shall we die together?'

CHICHIBU, Japan -- The dirt is still black with charcoal on the mountain road where police found six bodies slumped inside a van, a stove still smoking inside -- another in a spate of group suicides officials think can be traced to the Internet.

The five men and one woman, all in their 20s and from six prefectures across Japan, likely met on the Internet before dying together in a forested area 50 miles northwest of Tokyo, authorities said.

Internet suicide pacts have been most common in Japan, where the suicide rate is among the industrialized world's highest. A record 91 people died in 34 Internet-linked suicide cases last year, up from 55 people in 19 cases in 2004, according to the latest figures from the National Police Agency.

In March alone, at least 18 people have died in five separate cases of suspected Internet-linked group suicides in Japan, including three found dead Tuesday in western Japan.
In all those cases, the victims suffocated themselves inside cars using charcoal stoves, often sealing the windows with tape. Most of the dead have been in their 20s and 30s.

"Youngsters find that on Internet chat sites, they can talk about the most intimate of issues with total strangers, including vague notions of wanting to die," says Mafumi Usui, a psychology professor at Niigata Seiryo University. "Most of them aren't serious (about killing themselves). But say one chat participant starts suggesting concrete plans... That's when the Internet can encourage suicide," Usui said.

A chat room entry dated Feb. 9 and signed by a participant who identified herself as AQUOS reads: "I live in Kyushu, and I have everything ready except a car."

"I'm willing to go anywhere to die. I don't want to fail,I want to die with certainty," another chat room participant, Haru, replied two days later. There are no further entries from the two.

Experts suggest the Japanese are influenced by a traditional reverence of suicide.
In feudal Japan, ritual suicide was considered an honorable death under the samurai warrior ethic. "Chushingura," a saga about 47 loyal samurai who avenged their master's death and then committed mass suicide in 18th century Japan, has been made into countless movies and TV dramas.

"Japanese see suicide as tragic, yet beautiful or somehow sincere," said Usui, adding that was perhaps why so many used charcoal to die. Through Internet chat sites, "young Japanese have learned asphyxia doesn't damage the body, he said. "They think it allows them to die beautifully."