Thirty years on from the deadly sarin nerve fuel assault in Tokyo’s subway community, survivors and households who misplaced family members are nonetheless searching for justice.
13 folks have been killed and hundreds have been sickened when cult members launched sarin nerve fuel within the capital’s subway trains on March 20, 1995. The assault stays one of the stunning atrocities in Japan, a rustic identified for its low crime charges.
20 YEARS LATER, A SURVIVOR RECOUNTS JAPAN’S SARIN GAS ATTACK AND HOW IT AFFECTED HIS LIFE
The cult, Aum Shinrikyo or Supreme Reality, has since disbanded. Its founder, Shoko Asahara, and 12 of his disciples have been executed in 2018.
However 1,600 former members nonetheless function beneath renamed teams and have ignored an order to pay damages to survivors and bereaved households.
Shizue Takahashi misplaced her husband, a deputy station grasp, within the assault. The couple was simply beginning to get pleasure from time to themselves after elevating three kids when tragedy struck.
“My life continues to be being ruined by Aum and its successor teams,” stated Takahashi, 78. “We have to stick with it and never let the recollections fade.”
Folks gasped for air and collapsed
At 8 a.m. in the course of the morning rush, 5 cult members obtained on separate practice automobiles on three subway strains converging at Kasumigaseki, Japan’s authorities middle, every dropping baggage of sarin on the practice flooring. They punctured the luggage with umbrellas, releasing the fuel contained in the practice automobiles.
Inside minutes, commuters poured out of the trains onto the platforms, rubbing their eyes and gasping for air. Some collapsed. Others fled onto the streets the place ambulances and rescue staff in hazmat fits gave first-aid.
A subway signal, middle high, is seen on the Kodenmacho station, that was affected by a lethal sarin nerve fuel assault 30 years in the past, in Tokyo, as a passenger will get out of its exit Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photograph/Hiro Komae)
Kazumasa Takahashi didn’t know the puddle he was cleansing on the subway automobile flooring was sarin. He collapsed as he eliminated a bag — a sacrifice some survivors say saved lives — and by no means wakened.
The assault sickened greater than 6,000. A 14th sufferer died in 2020 after battling extreme after-effects.
The subway gassing occurred after a botched police investigation didn’t hyperlink the cult to earlier crimes, says Yuji Nakamura, a lawyer for the survivors and the bereaved households. “It may have been prevented,” he stated.
Two days after the gassing, Tokyo police, carrying a caged canary to detect poison, raided Aum’s headquarters close to Mount Fuji, the place the cultists lived collectively, skilled and produced sarin. Asahara was present in a hidden compartment.
Apocalyptic cult
Born Chizuo Matsumoto in 1955, Asahara based Aum Shinrikyo in 1984. The cult mixed Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and yoga, and attracted younger folks disillusioned with materialism. He taught that dying may elevate their spirits and justified killing as a advantage.
Followers paid to drink Asahara’s bathwater and wore electrical head gear they believed synchronized their mind waves with the guru’s. He prophesized an imminent apocalypse, which solely true believers would survive.
Asahara gathered medical doctors, legal professionals and scientists from Japan’s high universities as his closest aides.
Utilizing donations from followers and earnings from yoga courses and well being meals companies, they purchased land and gear. Asahara’s scientists developed and manufactured sarin, VX and different chemical and organic weapons.
In 1989, its members killed Tsutsumi Sakamoto, a lawyer who opposed the cult, his spouse and child boy. Their felony actions escalated after their defeat within the 1990 parliamentary elections. A 1994 sarin assault within the central Japanese metropolis of Matsumoto killed eight and injured greater than 140 others.
In all, Aum killed 27 folks in additional than a dozen assaults that culminated within the subway gassing. It was a part of a plot by Asahara to hasten Armageddon, envisioning overthrowing the federal government.
Nonetheless searching for redress
Shizue Takahashi attended a lot of the Aum felony trials. She has lobbied for presidency help, successful the enactment of a regulation to help crime victims and authorities advantages of three billion yen ($20 million) for greater than 6,000 survivors and bereaved households of the Aum crimes.
The federal government has additionally enacted legal guidelines banning sarin manufacturing and possession, and restricted the actions of teams linked to mass killings. Police have since established nuclear, organic and chemical weapons items and beefed up coaching.
Aum’s most important successor, Aleph, has ignored a court docket order to pay 1 billion yen ($6.7 million) in compensation to survivors and bereaved households. The group has allegedly hidden billions of yen of earnings from yoga and non secular seminars.
Most of the subway gassing survivors nonetheless undergo well being issues and trauma, based on help teams.
Takahashi and others final week referred to as on Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki to do extra to speed up compensation by Aleph and preserve them beneath shut watch.
Survivors and their supporters say classes haven’t been sufficiently shared with the general public.
Shoko Egawa, a journalist and knowledgeable on Aum crimes, says consideration on the group has largely centered on its crimes fairly than educating folks to keep away from harmful cults. “There’s nonetheless quite a bit to be taught from (the Aum issues), together with how they attracted followers, in order that we are able to stop folks from getting their lives ruined by cults,” Egawa stated.
Takahashi not too long ago launched a web site that compiles articles and feedback by survivors, legal professionals and writers, together with Haruki Murakami’s 2007 article about his 1997 guide “Underground.”
Aum’s remnants
At its peak, the cult boasted greater than 10,000 followers in Japan and 30,000 in Russia and elsewhere. Aum has disbanded, however about 1,600 folks belonging to Aleph and two smaller teams in Japan nonetheless apply Asahara’s teachings, stated the Public Safety Intelligence Company, which screens the teams.
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Minoru Kariya, whose father was killed by Aum members in early 1995 whereas he was attempting to get his sister to give up the cult, stated authorities have to do way more to sort out the menace.
“It’s scary that they nonetheless exist and are working as organizations and recruiting new followers,” he stated.
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