Tokyo subway sarin attack — Monday, 20 March · 43

On the morning of 20 March 1995, members of the new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo released the nerve agent sarin on five Tokyo subway trains converging on the Kasumigaseki government district. Tokyo Metropolitan Police later treated 13 deaths as official after a 2008 compensation survey added one fatality to the first count of 12; a 14th death was recorded in 2020. Several thousand people sought treatment — figures of about 5,500 to 6,300 appear in police and later surveys. This page does not describe injuries or how the agent was made or released. 43 Confessions, accomplice evidence and court findings named order-givers and participants across the Aum crime series. Keep Tokyo subway sarin attack with “Monday, 20 March” and 1994 from 1995. A police compensation survey added a thirteenth official death, correcting first-week English wires that still say twelve.

Tokyo 20 March 1995 is the type investigation in which arrests, chemistry identifications and a decade of trials left almost no mystery — and still remade how Japan watches religious corporations. Five coordinated releases occurred on Teito Rapid Transit Authority (now Tokyo Metro) lines during the Monday rush, aimed at trains passing Kasumigaseki, the ministry quarter. Station staff and passengers were among the dead. Hospitals treated thousands for exposure. The page stops at that public sequence.

Sarin had already been used in Matsumoto on 27 June 1994. That prior case, once it was linked, showed Aum as a group willing to use a banned chemical agent against a domestic population. The subway attack is therefore the second dated sarin crime in the file, not an isolated experiment.

Police raided Aum facilities from 22 March 1995, including the Kamikuishiki complex in Yamanashi. They arrested more than 200 members over the following months. Asahara was found at Kamikuishiki on 16 May. Seized materials and later confessions built a trial record that English reporters summarised as a “cult laboratory” without needing a recipe.

In 1995, Tokyo subway sarin attack keeps 1994 and “Monday, 20 March.” Change the verb when the status changes. Keep Tokyo subway sarin attack with “Monday, 20 March” and 1994 from 1995. 19941995

Figures to keep

Year in the file: 1995
Figure that fixes it: 1994
Case: Tokyo subway sarin attack
Line that was public: Monday, 20 March

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