This is the second installment of a series that examines the scars left by the Aum Supreme Truth cult’s chemical attack on the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, and explores the lessons learned from that tragedy.

Shozo Jin was examining brand-new chemical protection suits on the 16th floor of the Metropolitan Police Department’s headquarters in the Kasumigaseki district in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on March 20, 1995.

Jin, now 75, was in charge of equipment procurement at the MPD’s security bureau at the time, and the first police search of Aum Supreme Truth’s facilities in the then village of Kamikuishiki (now part of the town of Fujikawaguchiko), Yamanashi Prefecture, was scheduled to take place just two days later.

There were strong suspicions that the cult was involved in the production of sarin, a highly toxic nerve agent. Preparations were underway to unveil the protection suits, made for emergency situations, to the MPD Superintendent General and others.

Shortly after 8:20 a.m. on the day, tense emergency calls were circulating over police radio. They revealed that people had collapsed from a pungent smell in the Tokyo subway system. Hearing reports that people were foaming at the mouth and vomiting blood, Jin said he intuitively felt that the cult was behind the havoc.

Jin and three others hurriedly formed a response team. Wearing gas masks, they went down the stairs of Kasumigaseki Station. Jin said he was prepared to die at the time.

Jin lowered himself through a half-open window of a Hibiya Line train car. He scraped up some liquid-like substance, which had apparently leaked from a plastic bag found nearby on the floor, with his gloved hands. The bag had been wrapped in newspaper.

At 11 a.m., the MPD announced that the substance scattered in the subway system was “highly likely to be sarin.” Jin and his team went to two more stations and recovered more samples.

At Kasumigaseki Station on the Chiyoda Line, a bag containing sarin was kept in a safe in the station building. After returning to the police headquarters, Jin and the other team members suffered symptoms of miosis, in which the pupils constrict and one’s vision darkens. They are believed to have inhaled gas from the substance that was still on their protective clothing when taking the suits off.

“We didn’t have sufficient knowledge of chemical terrorism,” Jin said. “We weren’t well-prepared for such attacks, either.”

Although he retired in 2010, he continues to talk about his experience to younger people in the police to prevent the incident from being forgotten.