 When you think of a metro network, images like this might pop into mind. I know for me it brings back memories of the Jubilee line at 6.45am at Canada Water. If you've been there then you know what I mean. Being so close to your fellow travel compatriots, apart from being a great way to spread coughs, colds and a certain current event virus, it is also a valuable target for people with nefarious reasons. Although I've painted a London Underground style picture, today we're actually looking at the Tokyo Subway and an incident in 1995. The Tokyo Metro is the gold standard for efficient railway operation and is something to really gaze in awe at. The frequency and predictability of the trains would be its Achilles heel in attack, however. You see, the more efficient a network is at transporting people, the more efficient it can be at transporting a biological weapon, meaning a higher exposure rate to the public. Now we'll go into more detail in a bit, but the weapon of choice, Sarin, can be very effective on board a very packed subway train. And as such, I'm going to rate this disaster here, 8 on the patented plain default disaster scale. This is due to the potential that the attack could have had for many more deaths if it wasn't for the poorly manufactured Sarin. And I'm going to rate it here, 6 on my historical legacy scale, as lessons have been learnt, but subway networks around the world are still vulnerable. Before we go on to the attack, let's have a look at who was behind it. Now I'm not going to go into too much detail here, as we don't normally talk about anything religious on plain difficult. However, there is a great episode of the Necronomapod on the Umshin Rikio Japanese New Religious Movement. And this was who was linked to the attack in 1995. So I'll be referring to the perpetrators of the attack as the group or other nondescriptive terms, and I won't be mentioning any of the attackers by name as well. The group started in 1984 in a one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, starting off as a yoga and meditation class. The movement developed into a new religious organisation during the 1980s. It gained official status as a religious organisation in 1989 and attracted a large number of graduates from Japan's elite universities, which in turn helped boost its popularity. In 1993, the group started manufacturing their own nerve agents after a small laboratory in a Kami-kuishi-ki complex named Satyan-7 was built in November 1992. During this period, they had tried to make automatic rifles and anthrax, as well as many other different types of weapons, for an attack on the Japanese people to try and overthrow the government. By 1995, the group had been responsible for several incidents, including assassinations, VX attacks and an earlier Sarin attack. Fearing an attack on their compound, the group decided to carry out a massive attack on the Tokyo population, using Sarin to try and distract the Japanese authorities. Before we have a look at the event, let's find out what Sarin is and how it is deadly. Sarin is a colourless and odourless, extremely toxic, synthetic, organophosphorous compound. It is classed as a chemical weapon and, depending on a dose, can kill you between 1 to 10 minutes after exposure. The Asian is thought to be up to 26 times more deadly than cyanide and is toxic to human beings on both ingestion and skin contact, meaning people assisting victims can also be affected. After exposure, the victim would experience the following symptoms, a runny nose, tightness in the chest and constriction of the pupils. Later on, difficulty breathing and nausea would follow. As they continue to lose control of bodily functions, vomiting, defecation and urination may be experienced by the victim. Sarin is an inhibitor of acycolinesterase, which is an organic chemical used in the brain and is released by motor neurons of the nervous system to activate muscles. The agent has been used by many countries since its discovery in 1938 and its first known victim was Ronald Madison in Port and Down. Maybe I should cover that in a future video. Sarin is very unstable and evaporates from liquid to gas quickly but also decays in a relatively short amount of time, meaning it is very deadly but not for long. The Satyan 7 was a very small but very well-equipped and stocked manufacturing facility. But this did not ensure safe operation as the site experienced several accidental releases of various agents. This led to many of the workers falling ill to mild sarin exposure. But in the poor conditions, the group members managed to make 3kg of sarin which was used in the Matsumoto attack in 1994. As a little side tangent, this attack used a converted refrigerator truck to pump a cloud of sarin to its target, which is absolutely insane. The attack killed 7 people in the immediate aftermath and an 8-14 years later with over 50 injured. Sorry a bit sidetracked there. With a tip-off that the compound would be raided, frantically made more sarin for another attack in the hope of creating a distraction to local authorities. Due to the rushing of the production process, this time around the quality was only half of that at the Matsumoto attack and instead of a colourless liquid, had a brownish hue. Around 30kg of the agent was manufactured and placed into plastic bags ready to be used in one of Japan's worst terrorist attacks. This leads us onto the attack on the Toko Subway on the 20th of March 1995. Five attackers and five getaway drivers set out to release the deadly agent into several trains on the Toko Subway in the rush hour peak. Each attacker had two bags filled with sarin and an umbrella with a sharpened point to pierce the bags. Three lines were selected, the Chiyoda line, the Marunuchii line and the Hibiya line. The attackers had set direction on where to puncture their bags on trains heading in particular directions. This was to ensure that the attack happened at the same moment on five different trains that were travelling to the centre of Tokyo to create maximum damage. After the bag was punctured, the sarin liquid would begin to evaporate and its fumes would permeate the railway carriages affected by the attacks. Not long after the attackers had fled their respective targets, the trains passengers started to feel the effects of the agent. The worst train for casualties was Hibiya line A720S, the Southwest Bound 0743. The attacker on this train made the most amount of punctures in his packets of sarin. Not long after the assailant escaped, passengers started to feel sick. Noticing the large liquid soaked package on the floor and assuming it was the culprit, one of the passengers aboard the train kicked the packets onto Kodon Macho Station's platform. With the puddles still on the floor, the train continued on and more passengers were feeling ill. By the time the train reached Tajuki station, multiple casualties piled on the platform. Eventually, all the five affected trains were taken out of service for investigation and the cause of the passenger injuries. Many of the injured suffered from vision problems with many experienced convulsions, shortness of breath and nausea. Many of the affected stations were strewn with injured as they awaited treatment and transportation to hospital. In over over 600 were transported to hospital with nearly 5,000 making their own way for treatment across Tokyo's medical centres. Some of the less affected actually went to work with many only realising their exposure after reading news reports. During the event, many of the victims were secondary exposures from people already exposed with the agent amongst their clothes or on their skin. Not knowing the cause of the attack meant that subway workers inadvertently were also affected, leading to mass panic and chaos on the platforms. In total, three lines were affected, necessitating decontamination works. The efficiency of the subway system meant that the affected victims were kept in service longer than they should have, leaving more people open to exposure. Medicine for sarin poisoning had to be shipped in from smaller towns where it is used as an antidote for herbicide and insecticide poisoning. The bullet train network was used for the transportation. Just over a month after the attack for compound owned by Omishin Rikio was raided by the police and JDF in an armed show of force, fearing a violent retaliation from the group. In total, all of the perpetrators were caught with the last being arrested in 2012. In all, five of the attackers were sentenced to death and were executed by hanging along with other key leaders of the group in 2018. The remaining perpetrators of the attack were all given life sentences and these were mainly the getaway drivers. Only one of the people that actually set off the sarin attack on the subway network in 1995 showed remorse and because of this, he was given a life sentence. The attack shows how mass transit networks are vulnerable as their design efficiency in transporting people leads to less strict security controls. I mean, imagine going through airport security for traveling on the tube. This video has been a bit of a different subject from normal but I thought it was really interesting. 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