in the mountain resort of Matsumoto, 125 miles northwest of Tokyo, late in the evening of 27 June 1994. A substance later identified as sarin seeped through the open windows of apartments and houses, killing or injuring every living inside an area 500 yards long by 100 yards wide. Seven people died and 264 were injured. Suspicion initially fell on a former chemical salesman at whose residence various chemicals were seized, and who was believed to have released the gas accidentally in attempting to produce a homemade herbicide. However, police later dismissed him as a suspect and continued unsuccessfully to pursue what they considered to be a murder investigation.A few months after the Matsumoto incident (but not reported until after the Tokyo attack), in September 1994 an anonymous letter had been sent to the Japanese media, hinting that nerve-gas attackers could target the Tokyo Dome. The letter was also said to have correctly predicted that the next target would be Tokyo's subways. One listing of previous incidents notes, without providing any further details, that on 1 September 1994 "more than 230 people in western Japan suffered rashes and eye irritation from unknown fumes" (JT 1995). In a more widely-reported case, late on 5 March 1995, a colorless gas had filled a train car on the Keihin Kyuko rail line between Yokohama and Tokyo and overcome 19 of 80 passengers, the victims complaining of headaches, blurred vision and nausea. Eleven had been hospitalized, but there were no fatalities. According to one report: Police and firefighters searched the car but found nothing suspicious (JTW 1995). Just ten days later, on 15 March 1995, authorities in Tokyo found three attached cases at the Kasumigaseki subway station holding containers of clear liquid, a powerful battery-operated vaporizer and a fan to blow the resulting vapor through vents: at least one of the cases was emitting a kind of vapor. Although the liquid in question proved...
