Three people were killed and 34 injured in an explosion after a man, wielding a knife and cross bow and demanding back pay, took hostages in an office in the Japanese city of Nagoya on Tuesday and set the area alight. Paper and glass flew and screams could be heard as the blast ripped through the third floor office of a delivery firm in the industrial city, 170 miles west of Tokyo. Public broadcaster NHK said the three dead were the hostage-taker, the manager of the office and a police officer. Several police personnel and fire fighters were injured in the blast as flames shot from the building along with clouds of black smoke. "I ran away as soon as I heard the blast, but I still got hit by pieces of glass," an injured woman told private broadcaster TV Asahi. "It was flying everywhere." Media reports said 52-year-old Noboru Beppu, thought to be a contract driver with the firm, had stormed into the office about three hours before the blast, doused the area with a liquid and threatened to set the building on fire if he was not paid three months' wages of about 250,000 yen ($2,129). He then used a sofa and desks to barricade himself in the office along with eight hostages, all but one of whom were released before the explosion. When the man set off the explosion by setting fire to the liquid, fire fighters, police and television crews were already on the scene. It took about two hours to put out the resulting blaze. Although Japanese crime rates remain low by international standards, financial stress brought on by a weak economy over the last dozen or so years has been blamed for an increase in crime and a rise to near-record suicide rates. Disputes over money seem to have been the trigger for two hostage-taking incidents in Japan last December, one at a building contractor's office and another at a bank. A former taxi driver was sentenced to death earlier this year for setting fire to the office of a consumer credit firm and killing five staff during an attempted robbery in 2001. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A man hangs from the window of a burning office building after an explosion during a hostage situation in Nagoya, central Japan September 16, 2003. (Kyodo/Reuters)