E-Paper
HT This Day: March 21, 1995 -- 6 dead in Tokyo toxic gas attack
The morning rush-hour turned into a scene of horror on three crowded Tokyo subway lines on Monday as several toxic gas containers, apparently planted deliberately, flooded subway cars and stations with fumes that killed at least six people and injured hundreds, many critically.
The morning rush-hour turned into a scene of horror on three crowded Tokyo subway lines on Monday as several toxic gas containers, apparently planted deliberately, flooded subway cars and stations with fumes that killed at least six people and injured hundreds, many critically.
The gas containers apparently began emitting deadly vapour a little after 8 a.m. on one or more subway trains near the center of Tokyo. Authorities and witnesses said fumes caused immediate widespread vomiting, nasal bleeding and other debilitating symptoms among commuters crowded on subway cars or station platforms.
No group claimed responsibility for the gas attack, but police announced late Monday morning that they had opened a murder investigation, and the Government’s chief spokesman, Kozo Igarashi, told reporters: “It is still premature to determine details, but given the nature of this case, it is quite unthinkable that this was committed by a single person or that it was an accident.”
Police said initially that the gas involved was apparently methyl cyanide, a powerful metal solvent whose fumes can cause the reported symptoms. But chemical experts quickly questioned whether methyl cyanide could sicken so many people so quickly at so many separate locations, and Japan’s public television station NHK sand later that police officials suspected a nerve gas called sarin may have been the agent involved.
A similar incident occurred earlier this month on the Keihin Kyuko rail line between Yokohama and Tokyo, when a colourless gas filled the train shortly after midnight and overwhelmed 19 people who complained of headaches, blurred vision and nausea. Eleven people were hospitalised, but none died. Last June, a gas subsequently identified as sarin spread through a number of homes in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto, killing seven people.
Police have never been able to determine if the Matsumoto deaths were accidental or an act of terrorism, and officials said on Monday that it is unclear if the three incidents are related.
Terrorists acts of this sort are almost unheard of in Japan, although Left-wing and Right-wing groups occasionally launch small missiles or lob grenades at offices and homes of high-ranking Government officials or business executives.
Witnesses on one of the gassed trains, interviewed on Japanese television, said they saw a sticky liquid leaking from a package that looked like a lunch box wrapped in a newspaper. One woman told interviewers she saw the man who left the package leave the train after one stop and that the liquid began leaking one or two stops later. The man was described as being in his thirties or forties, wearing blue clothing that looked like a uniform.
More than 550 sickened people were taken to hospitals from 16 stations, while hundreds of others were treated on the spot. By midmorning, news reports quoted hospital officials as saying that some of the victims who had at first seemed to have been mildly exposed began streaming into hospitals, complaining that their symptoms had worsened.
One of the most seriously affected stations was apparently at Tsukiji, near Tokyo’s central fish market, where 180 people on one train were affected. Television also showed pictures of men lying unconscious on the platform at Kamiyacho station, a few stops away from Tsukiji on the Hibiya line. Stations on the Maronouchi and Chiyoda lines also reported gas vapour, and news reports quoted police as saying that suspicious-looking packages were found at several other spots around the city.
