Aum Shinrikyo
In 1995 a terrorist, cult organization in Japan called Aum Shinrikyo perpetrated a Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway (Reader, 2000). It left more than a dozen people dead, and thousands more were affected by the gas but later recovered. Many of those affected by it still have problems today, with issues such as post traumatic stress disorder and fear when using the subway system. They also experience vision problems, and worsening of conditions they already had before the incident (Ogawa, Yamamura, & Ando, et al., 2000). One of the most troubling issues, though, was not that the attack occurred, but the way it was handled by emergency response teams who were called in to contain the problem and care for the people who were injured and sick. The gas was released on a busy subway train full of unsuspecting individuals at a crowded time of day, but the subway trains kept running, even though those in charge of the subway were notified about the incident.
By allowing subway trains to continue to operate, more individuals were put at risk from the deadly gas. At the beginning of the attack, the first responders did not even know what was causing the symptoms. They knew that they were responding to a large scale problem, but they did not realize that it was a terrorist attack and they did not know what they were dealing with when it came to a toxic agent or the long and short-term effects of that agent. A professor from the local University who had studied Sarin gas in the past called the authorities to let them know what they were dealing with after seeing information about the symptoms that were being reported by the media (Ogawa, Yamamura, & Ando, et al., 2000). It was unfortunate that such a large city with such a strong government could not determine what kind of problem was being faced in a timely manner, and had to find out from someone who was not even affiliated with government response teams in any way.
The characteristics of the incident certainly affected the response. Since no one knew exactly what they were dealing...
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