30 years on, victims of Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack on Tokyo subway still traumatised
The cult behind the attack has yet to compensate its victims, while its offshoots continue to gain followers and amass wealth
Just as she has done on the anniversary of her husband’s death for the last 29 years, Shizue Takahashi will on Thursday morning take a rush-hour subway train to Kasumigaseki Station in the heart of Tokyo, Japan.
There, she will pay her respects with a small knot of station staff, police, survivors and relatives of people who died when followers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin nerve gas on the city’s subway system.
Takahashi’s husband, Kazumasa, was senior station master at Kasumigaseki, directly beneath the district that is home to Japan’s ministries and government agencies, when followers of the apocalyptic cult at around 8am pierced bags of sarin and left them on the floor of carriages.
The attack was a crude effort to disrupt a growing police investigation into the cult and its founder, Shoko Asahara. In total, 14 people died and more than 5,500 required treatment for exposure to sarin.
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Kazumasa Takahashi was one of the first to respond to reports of passengers collapsing aboard a halted train and on the platform. Unaware of the danger, he picked up a leaking bag to remove it from the carriage, but collapsed and was dead within minutes.