Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

The Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the 地下鉄サリン事件 (chikatetsu sarin jiken "subway sarin incident") was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of the religious group Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995. In five coordinated attacks, the conspirators released sarin gas on several lines of the Tokyo Subway, killing twelve people and injuring some six thousand more. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatacho, home to the Japanese government. This was (and remains, as of 2005) the most serious attack that has occurred in Japan since the end of the Second World War.

References

• "Survey: Subway sarin attack haunts more survivors" in Mainichi Online June 18, 2001.
• Detailed information on each subway line, including names of perpetrators, times of attack, train numbers and numbers of casualties, as well as biographical details on the perpetrators, were taken from Haruki Murakami's book on the attack called Underground (ISBN 0375725806).