WATCH: Japan PM Fumio Kishida attacked with smoke bomb, evacuated after blast during stump speech in Wakayama

Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came under attack with a smoke bomb when he was delivering a speech in the Japanese city of Wakayama. The prime minister has now been evacuated safely and the attacker is apprehended, as per reports. Several explosions were heard and the officers while responding to the situation quickly rushed Kishida out of the scene. 

According to the Japanese news agency Kyodo News, a man hurled what seemed to be a smoke bomb at Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday when he was giving a campaign address in western Japan.

Kishida was alongside a candidate for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party when the incident took place. The Japanese prime minister was evacuated from the area unharmed.

Immediately after the incident, which happened during official campaigning for a lower house by-election for the Wakayama No. 1 district, the attacker was taken into custody by police. The address by Kishida has been cancelled, as per Kyodo News. 

Video footage on social media shows how a man being held down by several others who seemed to be police officers at the site. Meanwhile, the people who had gathered at the incident ran for cover as was seen in the footage.

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After touring the fishing harbour in Wakayama, Kishida had just begun to give a speech, according to NHK media outlet. Many of the event’s footage is now being shared on social media. The incident comes ahead of next month’s meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) leaders which Kishida is set to host in Hiroshima. 

Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, was fatally shot in July 2017 while making a campaign address ahead of the upper house election.

(This is a developing story)

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