Local reports say that at least five people have been killed in a stabbing attack in the western Japanese city of Sumoto.

Police authorities there had arrested a 40-year-old, unemployed man for allegedly attacking the victims at a farmstead early on Monday morning.

Japanese media had named the attacker as Tatsuhiko Hiran.

He was found with blood on his clothes and initially admitted to the killing.

The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.

Police found the bodies of two women in their 50s and 60s and the body of a man in his 60s in a house at the site.

A couple in their 80s were found dead in another building nearby.

Locals said the attacker, who rarely left home, lived in the neighborhood with his father and grandmother.