Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche—simply known as Underground (アンダーグラウンド) in its original Japanese—is a Murakami Haruki book. Originally published in Japan on March 20, 1997, it chronicles the testimonies of people who survived the Tokyo Sarin Subway Attack, also known as the Subway Sarin Incident (地下鉄サリン事件 Chikatetsu sarin jiken), which took place two years prior.
The US and UK English translations were published on June 1, 2000. Alfred Birnbaum served as the English translator for Underground, which will be the main source for this essay.
Content Warning: The following essay contains graphic details of domestic terrorism, death and grief. Reader discretion is advised.
This is Part 1 of a two-part series. All ages given are as of the year 1996, when the interviews were originally conducted. Interview excerpts have been formatted into shorter paragraphs for readability. Names written in quotes are pseudonyms.
The Motivation Behind the Murakami Haruki Book
Murakami’s motivation to compile this oral history was multilayered. However, nuance was of the highest priority, as the Japanese media had sensationalized the incident to an alarming degree. In its haste to redundantly cement Aum Shinrikyo—the nefarious cult responsible for the attacks—the media had largely forgotten about the survivors as individuals.
It’s safe to say that aside from a reasonable amount of caution and common sense, most commuters have neither any plans nor desire to be victims of a terrorist attack, let alone die on the day before a national holiday. They are most likely headed to work, school, or other obligations. Perhaps they were building a family, or fretting about how distant they had become from said family.
Whether the survivors’ personal affairs were pivotal or mundane, one thing is clear—the moment the sarin liquid packets were punctured, their lives drastically changed, or were taken entirely.
“The Japanese media had bombarded us with so many in-depth profiles of the Aum cult perpetrators—the ‘attackers’—forming such a slick, seductive narrative that the average citizen—the ‘victim’—was an afterthought … which is why I wanted, if at all possible, to get away from any formula; to recognize that each person on the subway that morning had a face, a life, a family, hopes and fears, contradictions and dilemmas—and that all these factors had a place in the drama …
Furthermore, I had a hunch that we needed to see a true picture of all the survivors, whether they were severely traumatized or not, in order to better grasp the whole incident.”
-Murakami Haruki, preface to Underground
There was also an additional, more personal reason as to why Murakami took on this task. Up until that point, he had lived in the United States for over nine years, and had grown distant from his native Japan. As such, he felt it was his societal duty to give the survivors a space in which they could tell their individual stories.
In this piece, we will look at a summarized history of the Subway Sarin Incident, selected excerpts from Underground, the immediate aftermath of the attacks, and editorial commentary.
3/20/1995
On Monday, March 20, 1995, during the morning rush hour, five teams from the doomsday religious cult Aum Shinrikyo were dispatched to three subway lines on the Tokyo Metro. Each team consisted of a perpetrator and a getaway driver. The target subway lines were the Chiyoda Line, the Marunouchi Line and the Hibiya Line.
These lines passed through Kasumigaseki and Nagatacho Stations, where the Japanese Parliament (also known as the National Diet) is located. The cult saw this area as an ideal theater for their act of terrorism. If all went as planned, the national government would be greatly impacted. Additionally–and from a spiritual perspective–Hell itself would be unleashed on Tokyo, the nation’s capital.
Once the perpetrator was driven to their respective train station, they descended into the subway, wearing a long coat, armed with a sharpened umbrella, and carrying at least two plastic packets of sarin liquid, wrapped in newspaper.
Sarin is a toxic nerve agent that affects the muscles, lungs and eyes. When inhaled or ingested, it depletes a very important enzyme in the human body:
If you want to move a muscle, the nerve endings send out an order to the muscle cells in the form of a chemical…it’s a messenger. When the muscles receive that they move, they contract. After the contraction, the enzyme cholinesterase serves to neutralize the message sent…which prepares for the next action. Over and over again.
-Dr. Saito Toru, survivor of the 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack and interviewee for Underground
However, when the cholinesterase runs out…the muscle stays contracted. Now muscles work by repeated contraction and expansion, so when they stay contracted we get paralysis. In the eye, that means contracted pupils.
Whether they went into their assigned train car, or they chose a different car, the perpetrators made their way inside the sardine-packed subway.
While riding to their stop, the perpetrators dropped the sarin packets, punctured them with sharpened umbrella tips, deboarded the train and returned to the surface. After a rendezvous with their getaway driver, the team escaped back to the Aum Shinrikyo headquarters in Shibuya.
Back on the train, commuters noticed a sweet, yet rotten smell wafting through the car. Some passed out immediately while others violently coughed. Many foamed at the mouth while suffocating. But all had begun to lose their vision, an undeniable sign that they had all been poisoned by the sarin gas evaporating from the packets.
This happened on five different trains.
As a result of the attack, there were 12 deaths (eight of them instant), and over 1000 severe injuries, especially that of the eyes. The Tokyo Metro canceled all service for the affected lines that day, and desperate patients overwhelmed nearby hospitals. 25 years later, the Subway Sarin Incident is still considered to be the deadliest terror attack in modern Japanese history.
Different Survivors, Different Endings
Kazaguchi Aya, commuter, 23
Kazaguchi Aya, a reggae-loving bookkeeper from northeast Tokyo, was a survivor who only experienced minor injuries. Nevertheless, Kazaguchi’s minor confusion at her sudden illness, turned disastrous:
I notice it’s hard to breathe. It’s like there’s this tight pressure in my chest, and as much as I try to inhale, no breath comes in…’That’s odd,’ I’m thinking, ‘must be because I got up early’ (laughs)
…That’s when the people hanging on to the handstraps started coughing. The car was pretty empty by then…But I was so short of breath, I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible….
That’s when I look, and by the door, there was something wrapped in newspaper…and…it was dripping wet…sloshing around to the rhythm of the train….
Meanwhile, the train reaches Nijubashi-mae, so I get off and everyone else who gets off with me is coughing. I’m hacking away, too. About ten people got off and every one of them was coughing, so I knew there had to be something, it wasn’t just me.…
By the time I got to the office and we were in the meeting, I started to feel really sick, like I’m going to throw up. Then it came on the news that something had happened on the subway, and I think, ‘Aha, so that’s it!’ When I heard I felt faint…I’m a real coward. I went straight to St. Luke’s Hospital.-Kazaguchi Aya, survivor of the 1995 Tokyo Sarin Subway Attack and interviewee for Underground.
They put me on a drip for two hours and ran blood tests, then told me, ‘Okay, you can go home now.’…I showed no signs of contracted pupils, I just felt sick….Luckily I was dozing off. That’s what a detective told me. My eyes were shut, and my breathing was lighter and shallower. (laughs) Just lucky, I guess.
Kazaguchi Aya was on the Yoyogi-Uehara bound train #A725K on the Chiyoda Line. The respective perpetrator was Hayashi Ikuo, the only convict who is serving a life sentence . All other convicts, including Asahara Shoko, the mastermind behind the attacks, were executed by hanging in early July of 2018.
Nishimura Sumio, 46, station attendant
Multiple accounts on the Ogikubo-bound train #A777 on the Marunouchi Line, recount seeing two collapsed individuals in the affected car–an elderly man who later died and a middle-aged woman.
Nishimura Sumio, an enthusiastic Tokyo Metro transport assistant, gave further detail of this event.
I entered the third car from the front through the farthest back of the three doors and saw a sixty-five-year-old man sprawled on the floor. Opposite him, a fifty-year-old woman had slid off her seat. They were panting, gasping, bloodstained pink foam coming out of their mouths. The man seemed totally unconscious at first glance.
-Nishimura Sumio, survivor of the 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack and interviewee for Underground
The thought flashed through my mind: ‘Ah, a double love suicide.’ But of course they weren’t, it was just a fleeting impression. The man died later. The woman, I hear, is still in a coma.
While Arima survived, he sustained injuries from not only being in the poisoned car, but also removing the broken sarin packets with his bare hands. He stayed in the hospital for six days, overcoming contracted pupils and multiple blood transfusions. When asked about the picking up the sarin packets, Arima chalked it up to a normal day’s work.
If I hadn’t been there, somebody else would have picked up the packets. Work means you fulfill your duties. You can’t look the other way.
Nishimura Sumio, survivor of the 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack and interviewee for Underground
“Akashi Shizuko”, commuter, 31
“Akashi Shizuko” was a seamstress-turned-cashier for most of her adult life. While it wasn’t her ideal place of work, she had moved up in the company and was able to take care of her elderly parents, well after her brother “Tatsuo” had built a family of his own. She gave her family and friends thoughtful gifts, and took occasional trips to Tokyo Disneyland.
On the day of the Subway Sarin Incident, Shizuko was to attend an employee training seminar in Suginami, an area in west Tokyo, that is accessible via the Marunouchi Line–one of the three subway lines targeted by Aum Shinrikyo. Though the Marunouchi is a loop line, she had made a transfer at Kasumigaseki–the main target.
She ended up in the car with the sarin packet and immediately collapsed into a vegetative state.
Shizuko’s coma was fortunately brief, but her injuries were critical. Due to oxygen deprivation, her motor and speaking skills were greatly impacted. This meant she couldn’t breathe nor walk on her own. Murakami not only interviewed her older brother Tatsuo but met Shizuko herself in the hospital.
While she was capable of rudimentary communication, she had no memory of the attack, or anything before it. Regardless, Murakami’s interview with her is tantamount to painting a complete picture of her survival.
…Her mind is there, turning over at high speed in her head, only her tongue and jaws can’t keep pace.
I can scarcely make out half of what she says. Tatsuo of course, can discern lots more. “The nurses here…are nice people, isn’t that right?”
‘Aayih-ee-uh [Nice people],” agrees Shizuko .
‘But sometimes,’ Tatsuo continues, ‘when I don’t understand what Shizuko’s saying, she gets really angry. You don’t want me to leave before I get what you’re saying, do you? Like the last time. Isn’t that right, Shizuko?”-Murakami Haruki, Underground
Silence. Embarrassed silence.
‘Hey, what are you so shy about?’ Tatsuo teases her. ‘You said so yourself, didn’t you? You wouldn’t let Brother go before he understood.’
At that Shizuko finally breaks into a smile. And when she smiles she really lights up. She smiles a lot more than most people, though perhaps she simply has less control of her facial muscles. I’d like to imagine that Shizuko always smiled that way, it blends in so naturally with her face. It striked me that she and her brother probably carried on this way as children.
Despite these bleak endings, the Tokyo Sarin Subway Attack did have some heroes.
Dr. Yanagisawa Nobuo, 61
In addition to the station attendants and concerned civilians, the medical professionals were of course, a major key to dealing with the crisis. However, there were some drawbacks. Most notably, interviewees noted how it took a few hours for the hospitals to be aware of the sarin attack. Administrative matters often got in the way of people receiving emergency care:
I went to the office and asked one of my coworkers to accompany me to the hospital. ‘Come with me’, I said. ‘I can’t see to walk.’ There were two or three people with similar symptoms at the hospital. I told the nurse at the reception desk, ‘I can’t see’, but all she said was, ‘Well this isn’t an eye clinic.’ No comprehension whatsoever.
-Komada Shintaro, survivor of the 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack and interviewee for Underground
But others came in with the same condition and soon enough, the television’s blaring out details on the victims’ symptoms. Slowly but surely the hospital realized it had a crisis on its hands. They made makeshift beds out of the reception area sofas and began administering blood transfusions. Pretty soon there were faxes coming in with medical information.
The faxes had come from Dr. Yanagisawa Nobuo, who was the head doctor at Shinshu University’s School of Medicine in Nagano. Nagano is also home to the city of Matsumoto, which had just experienced its own sarin attack a mere nine months prior on June 27, 1994. The sarin attack was also perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo, resulting in eight deaths and over 500 injuries.
Because of his close proximity to the Matsumoto Incident, Dr. Yanagisawa was well-versed in sarin poisoning treatment. After his secretary informed him of “something strange” happening in Tokyo around 9:00 am, which also happened to be his university’s graduation day, he turned on the news.
He watched as survivors complained of runny noses, vomiting and headaches–which while signs of poisoning, were not unique to one group of toxins. However, when one survivor said, “When I looked in the mirror my eyes were so small”, Dr. Yanagisawa sprung into action:
I immediately called in two doctors from Neuropathology and told them to contact St. Luke’s and any other hospitals that were thought to have taken in these patients. We faxed information to every single hospital they mentioned on TV: ‘Treat with sulfuric atropine and 2-Pam as antitoxin, etc., etc.,
Ordinarily I ought to have cleared all this through the head of the hospital, but I thought talking directly to the doctors in the wards would be faster….There was a final proof of the Matsumoto Sarin Incident Report on my desk outlining the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of sarin gas poisoning, so they just kept faxing out copies. I keep thinking in retrospect how lucky we were to have hand that on hand. But even so, there were so many pages, so many places to send to, it took an amazing effort.
-Dr. Yanagisawa Nobuo, interviewee for Underground
Between Dr. Yanagisawa’s sharing of information, and the Tokyo hospitals’ triage approach to decide the priority of treating patients, many lives were saved. Yet this was entirely based on a trifecta of luck. The luck that Shinshu University had graduation day and therefore the staff had a lighter workload. The luck that Dr. Yanagisawa had a full report of sarin treatment on hand. Finally, the fact that report was drafted in response to a deadly incident, was not lost on the head doctor.
While we can attribute the inefficiency of this information exchange to the time period–it was 1995 after all, a time when the Internet was still in its early stages of growth–there is a large inefficiency at the national level.
The biggest lesson we learned from the Tokyo gas attack and the Matsumoto incident was that when something major strikes, the local units may be extremely swift to respond, but the overall picture is hopeless. There is no prompt and efficient system in Japan for dealing with a major catastrophe. There’s no clear-cut chain of command. It was exactly the same with the Kobe earthquake.
In both [incidents], I think the medical organization responded extremely well. The paramedics were also on top of things. They deserve praise. As one American expert said, to have had five thousand sarin gas victims and only twelve dead is a miracle. All thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the local units, because the overall emergency network was useless….To be perfectly honest, the way things are with us doctors in Japan, it’s almost unthinkable that any doctor would go out of his way to send unsolicited information to a hospital. The first thought is never to say too much, never to overstep one’s position.
-Dr. Yanagisawa Nobuo, interviewee for Underground
But with the gas attack I had other motives too. One of the seven people who died in the Matsumoto Incident was a medical student here at Shinshu University. A coed, extremely bright, who by rights ought to have been at that day’s graduation ceremony. That simple fact kept me going.
Aftermath
On May 16, 1995, around two months after the sarin attack, Aum Shinrikyo headquarters was raided. Multiple cultists were arrested, including the leader Asahara, who was found hiding in a small room. He specifically was charged with 27 counts of murder in 13 separate incidents, including the Tokyo Subway Sarin Incident. Upon his arrest, he resigned as leader in order to prevent Aum from being dissolved, but to no avail. On October 10, 1995, Aum Shinrikyo was stripped of its official status as a legally recognized religion.
Despite their consequential bankruptcy, Aum Shinrikyo functions under a new name: Aleph. Though they claim not to be as violent and dogmatic as its predecessor, they are still closely monitored by the government.
Even though there was a low death rate of 12 in relation to the high victim count of 5,000, the Japanese public was not pleased with the quality of crisis management. Interviewees in Underground voiced their frustrations as well. Namely the following:
- The emergency response network was inadequate. Many victims were initially turned away from treatment.
- The media’s coverage was incessant and sensationalized. While they obtained exclusive footage of the victimized, they hesitated to drive them to the hospital.
- The Tokyo Metro took too long to cease operation of trains, and had initially reported the gas attack as an “explosion”.
To tell the truth, though, I have my doubts about the police and fire department. Okay, they sprang into action in the beginning at Tsukiji, but even so they were just way too late in coming to help at Kodemmacho. We’d given up on them by the time they arrived. I just wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t taken it upon ourselves to do something….
-Ogata Naoyuki, survivor of the 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack and interviewee for Underground
The police only showed up after the rescue operation was practically over. Then they began directing traffic for the one ambulance that arrived. I don’t know what’s wrong with Japan’s standby disaster arrangements….They’d identified a link Aum and sarin at [the Matsumoto Incident]. If they’d followed that up this whole gas attack wouldn’t have happened, or at least I’d have come away with less serious injuries….
In 2008, 13 years after the attack, the Japanese government authorized payments for victims of the attack. Victims report headaches, eye pain and PTSD well after the incident.
Personal Note
The first time I heard of the Subway Sarin Incident, I was in high school. It was 2005, and I was watching a horror movie called Saw II. In this movie, the characters were trapped in a house that would fill with nerve gas and they had two hours to escape it. The villain, Jigsaw, referenced the real-life terrorist attack in Tokyo, since he was also using sarin for his victims.
I looked up the incident online later that week, surprised that such an event could happen in Japan. This strained illusion of safety remains common in contemporary Japan, even after the Matsumoto Incident, the Tokyo Subway Sarin Attack, the 2008 Akihabara Massacre, the 2019 Kawasaki Stabbings and other disastrous events.
In the eyes of the general public, crime is rarely committed in Japan, and if it does occur, it is usually at the hands of a foreigner. In fact, the four aforementioned atrocities were all committed by Japanese men. Nevertheless, the flawed concept of Japanese innocence is upheld by nationalism and tatemae—the cultural practice of keeping up appearances.
I was even more surprised that the sarin was released with sharpened umbrella tips and plastic bags—contrary to the slick mechanisms used by fictional, charismatic villains.
The fact that I learned about the event through the media, and not in school, is an example of the media’s power. As mentioned in the introduction, the media was more hungry for story than sympathy. Even when they did pay attention to the survivors, it was usually in an exploitative manner.
When used creatively and effectively, the media keeps the public informed. I’m sure that the production team of Saw II didn’t necessarily intend to spread the news about the subway attack when they used it as a plot point in the film, and it was more used as a frame of horrific reference for the audience. But for me, a person who witnessed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and has a father who survived the attacks, it moved me on a deeper level.
I didn’t read Underground, however, until around six years ago, back in 2014. It was truly a chilling experience. While it is in no way a fictional thriller, the feeling of shock and uneasiness washed over me as I read testimony after testimony of the survivors. These feelings intensified whenever I rode the Marunouchi or Chiyoda Lines—two of the attacked subway lines. Sitting comfortably on a train pales in comparison to what those commuters experienced on March 20, 1995, and I was all the more haunted by it. Was I sitting in a car where someone suffocated or went blind? Did someone die here?
Of course, looking back on it, that’s probably not the case. If the train numbers don’t match up, then there was no cause for concern. I would be surprised if those trains are still in commission.
It goes without saying that I highly recommend Underground. Murakami’s interviewing style centers the survivors, and there are minimal interjections from him. Birnbaum’s translation is natural and has a very empathetic quality to it. Underground is a solid primary source, compiled in the face of an exploitative media campaign.
This is the end of Part I. In Part II, we will look at the second half of Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Originally published as a separate volume in Japan, The Place That Was Promised, is a short yet engaging compilation of interviews with non-perpetrating members of the cult Aum Shinrikyo.
Sources
- Murakami, Haruki. Underground: the Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel, Vintage, 2013.
