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.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
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.