Survivors Reflect on Tokyo Metro Nerve Gas Attack 30 Years Later

TaiwanPlus News

On March 20, 1995, Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo launched a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Metro. 30 years later, survivors reflect on the day that shook the world.

Transcript

00:00Takahashi Shizue remembers the day she was told her husband, Kazumasa, was hospitalized.

00:23On the morning of March 20, 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult carried

00:29out an attack that rocked Japan and brought its sprawling capital Tokyo to a panicked

00:34standstill.

00:36Cult members boarded the Tokyo Metro during rush hour, armed with sarin nerve gas, a deadly

00:42chemical weapon, releasing it on three of the city's busiest lines.

00:48The gas spread throughout the packed subway cars, killing 14 people, severely injuring

00:54dozens of others, and hurting thousands.

00:58The attack meant to spark an apocalyptic war.

01:18The cult manufactured their own sarin.

01:21It's a nerve agent that causes involuntary muscle contractions.

01:25Sufficient exposure results in asphyxiation.

01:28For some, like Mr. Takeda, who managed to quickly leave the subway, the effects were mild.

01:41Other victims, like Takahashi Kazumasa, a metro system worker who tried to clean up

01:46the spilled nerve agent, succumbed to the fumes.

01:55At a park in Osaka, Niimi Yuki reads a letter from her deceased husband, Tomomitsu.

02:19She also recalls learning of his death.

02:25Yuki's husband, Niimi Tomomitsu, was one of the cult members responsible for carrying

02:46out the attack.

02:47He was executed, along with 12 others, including Aum's charismatic leader, Asahara Shoko,

02:53in 2018.

02:55Yuki met Tomomitsu when he was already behind bars, their first physical contact at a morgue.

03:13She was a member of the cult's successor organization called Aleph.

03:18She says she's left the cult, but it and its executed founder, Asahara, still has a following.

03:24Japan's constitution guarantees religious freedom, but the scars of fanaticism still

03:59The echoes of the attack still haunt many who were affected by the Aum Shinrikyo cult's

04:09deadly assault.

04:11The living carrying the wounds of the past.

04:14Chris Ma and Jonathan Kaplan for Taiwan Plus.

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