This thesis contains the academic approach of Explore, Understand and Do in the Sarin nerve agent attack in Tokyo in 1995

1. Rens van Mierlo
This thesis is an academic way of exploring, understanding and doing the terrorist attack
in Japan’s subway network in 1995.
C o u r s e s t u d y ( M O O C ) a t L e i d e n U n i v e r s i t y
A two perspective approach
of the Tokyo’s Sarin attack

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Empirical facts (what happened)
On March 20, 1995 Tokyo was hit by a disastrous terrorist attack. At around 08:00
o’clock during the rush hour in Japan’s capital subway network five two-person teams
(one attacker and one driver) conducted a nearly simultaneous attack on lots of
travellers by using the deadly nerve agent Sarin. Three subway lines were selected by
these terrorists namely the Marunouchi line, the Hibiya line and the Chyoda line. The
ultimate goal was that all lines converged in the heart of Tokyo’s governmental district,
Kasumigaseki. Five terrorists were driven to five different stations; Shinjuku, Ueno,
Kitasenju, Neka-Meguro and Korakuen, and subsequently boarded the subway trains
between 07:39 and 07:58. Four of them carried two, in newspapers wrapped, packages
of Sarin, the other terrorists carried three packages. All these five men were in
possession of an umbrella with a sharpened tip. The sharpened tip was meant for
puncturing the packages of sarin for activating.
All attacks were carried out at approximately 08:00 o’clock, and subsequently after
some 10 minutes later the first emergency calls arrived at the Tokyo Metropolitan Fire
Department. Meanwhile chaos, hysteria and panic broke out as for the first period of
time it was unknown what the cause of this dramatic failure was. Many people had
severe airway problems or passed away on the stations, emergency responses did not
know how to handle protocols of unknown disasters (e.g. decontamination), and were
overwhelmed. At about 09:00 o’clock the Tokyo Metropolitan Fire Department
established headquarters for emergency response operations at affected stations, as it
was convinced by the National Police Agency that this was a major incident in the
subway system and significant responses were required. St. Luke’s international
hospital was one of the few hospitals able and prepared to handle major disasters. As
the hospital was in close proximity of the contaminated subway area, lots of victims
were transported to the hospital or went by own means like taxis and/or by foot.
At 11:00 o’clock the police announced in a press conference that sarin was the source of
the subway attacks. Up until that point the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Tokyo
Police, Tokyo Metropolitan Fire department, the Japanese Self Defense Force (JDSF) as
well as the Japanese national government did not had a clue what caused the effects.
Five highly educated members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult executed the attack. As the
sarin used in the attack was only 30 percent pure, the result in killing was not more than
twelve people, and around 3500-5500 people were contaminated, varying in range from
severe to negligible.
Perspective of Counter terrorism.
Aum Shinrikyo was founded in 1987 by Chizuo Matsumoto (who later changed his name
to Shoko Asahara). That cult initially started as a yoga and meditation club, so the Tokyo
Metropolitan Government granted that yoga group as an official religious corporation
status in august 1989. That status implied that authorities are not permitted to

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investigate its “religious activities or doctrines”. With its status as a legally recognized
religion, the Aum’s activities and character dramatically changed, and followers were at
about 50.000 worldwide by 1995. The cult became more aggressive and dangerous
(kidnapping and physical assaults). In 1990 Asahara was defeated with disappointed
results for the Japanese Diet (congress) election. Since then, Asahara and his cult
announced the Amageddon, claiming the responsibilities to the USA and Japan. Also he
rejected normal interactions with the larger Japanese society and seeks confrontations
with the government. A series of incidents happened since then, some examples are: the
killing of a lawyer representing the anti Aum groups, attempts to bring up the Ebola
virus from Africa, research and production of chemical agents, testing of biological
agents on a ranch in Australia, and the purchase of a Russian military helicopter and
weaponry. On 27 June 1994 a sarin attack took place in the city of Matsumoto using a
converted truck to release the agent, resulting in the killing of seven people and injured
over 200. The reason for that attack was possibly twofold: First the cult wanted to slow
or stop a civil lawsuit over real estate. Three judges, residing that area, handled that case
and were killed. Another reason could be the fact that the assault was a kind of rehearsal
and testing of sarin when an attack was planned on a later moment. This attack was
categorized as an accident.
When policemen coordinated with the JSDF for contingencies in chemical protective
measures, members of Aum inside the JSDF alerted Asahara about a planned raid on the
cult compound on march 23, 1995. Asahara decided to take immediate preemptive
action by conducting a major chemical nerve agent sarin attack with the intention to
distract police and prevent the raid on the Kamikuishiki compound. The result was the
march 20, 1995 attack on Tokyo’s subway system.
Perspective of Crisis Communication
Crisis communication is described, as it is a sum of collecting, processing and
dissemination of information which all of these are important to tackle the crisis. The
Tokyo Metropolitan Government is responsible for regional disaster management and
as a result in regional crisis communication. The Tokyo Metropolitan Fire Department
(TMFD) is responsible for selection of hospitals, transportation and first aid (out of
hospital care). St Luke’s hospital had the entire building wired and piped for conversion
into a “field hospital”. In short notice: crisis communications did not work out at the
beginning, as it was unclear for a couple of hours what was happening. Reports were
received informing that a mass casualty situation was taken place in the underground
but with no exact details of what, where, when, whom why and by what means. The
result was chaos and panic. Also, the facts were that information was too little and
contamination protocols were not established. Subway trains remain traveling along the
route, people and first aid responders and subway personnel were assisting victims
without protective measures and so on. Processing of information was not working out
at all. E.g. St Luke’s hospital took notice of Sarin as the cause of these incidents by a press
release on television, not by informing them via official means. When showed the live
broadcasts on television, a doctor involved in the Matsumoto case recognized the

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symptoms of sarin and called the official institutes in Tokyo. The dissemination of
information was for that reason not executed in the right chronological way. When the
TMFD and the St Luka’s hospital were the first ones who knew that it was about sarin,
first and second decontamination protocols could have been executed earlier in time
and safeguarded more victims. All about this poorly executed crisis communications lays
in the fact of missing the recognition of sarin gas as a nerve agent and to lack of proper
communication means when communicating. Remarkable fact is that the Matsumoto
incident a year earlier was not put into crisis protocols.
How to address such phenomena for next time
Japanese law enforcement organizations continued investigations on several incidents
and gathered information that indicated that Aum Shinrikyo might be involved in
incidents involving chemical attacks. However, Japanese laws protecting recognized
religious organizations prevented authorities from certain levels of detailed inquire or
direct action against that cult. Lessons learned are that intelligence and indicators on
criminal and terrorists acts should proceed their way in investigations and as a result
apprehend such parties in time.
In the light of crisis communication a solid real time multi-directional communication
system should be established. But also that a system like that should have the possibility
to communicate on different levels (multi channel availability) so that local, regional and
national governments in a multi-level perspective can communicate on pre-designated
channels while others like hospitals, TMFD, local police etc. (multi actor) can conduct
crisis communication on another channel. This means that these conditions could imply
that an in-time recognition and acting on suspected terrorists and their groups,
including their TTP’s, could prevent an attack like the sarin gas attack in Tokyo. And
when it does happen; protocols (recognition of WMD), frequent exercises,
communicating drills and above all, amendments on Japanese constitution and laws will
probably succeed in the prevention of attacks like this in the future.