Sarin factory and body disposal site…30 years after the sarin gas attack on the subway, the site of Aum Shinrikyo’s “former base” now

The Sixth Satyan was a large facility where believers lived in groups, and became famous after the sarin gas attack on the subway, when Oyasama Asahara spent nearly two months hiding in a hidden room behind the ceiling. A reporter who covered the incident recalls.

Until Asahara’s arrest, the room was haunted almost every day by people from the media, including television, newspapers, and magazines. In front of the hut marked “VICTORY” at the entrance, believers were guarding the building 24 hours a day. I remember a tape of Asahara singing “I’m innocent, I’m innocent, I’m innocent” was played endlessly even late at night.

In the early morning, boxes of what appeared to be “Aum-shoku,” or breakfast for believers, were brought in in large quantities, and the smell of ripe bananas spread throughout the area. It was reported that only Asahara’s family members ate high-grade melons, but the believers seemed to have a simple diet.

Today, there are no traces of Asahara’s family left in the area, except for a thick growth of dead grass. Behind the house, as majestic as it was at the time, looms Mt.

Walking on the site of the former sarin plant

Inside the huge white building that once towered over the site was a full-scale chemical plant for the production of highly poisonous gas and other chemicals. This magazine scooped up photos of its interior in its April 21, 1995 issue. Today, the place is covered with weeds, and it is hard to believe that there was a terrorist chemical plant there if we were not told.

Although this factory was preserved in its current state longer than the other Satyans for subsequent trials and investigations, it was dismantled around 1998.

The next stop was the site of the Fuji Headquarters (Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture). It is about a 20-minute drive from the former Kamikyuuichiki Village. Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture, on the border with Yamanashi Prefecture, is the site of the former headquarters, which has attracted attention for the introduction of a helicopter imported from Russia. It is said that here, too, the tragedy of the poaching of believers and the confinement of children in solitary confinement was repeated. The 1st and 4th Satyan are adjacent to the site, and at the time, videos and animations of the cult’s preaching were produced there.

A monument commemorating the unity of local residents in their efforts to eliminate the Aum cult remains as a faint trace.

An hour’s drive from the headquarters at Mt. Fuji Seiryu Seisha, a facility located along a river deep in the town of Nanbu, Yamanashi Prefecture. It is said that plans were afoot to smuggle automatic rifles and other weapons into the factory inside. On the site of the former facility is a park named “Oasis in the Forest,” but the fact that the facility was once associated with the Aum cult has been largely forgotten, and only the quiet murmur of the river can be heard.

In the 30 years that have passed, traces of the Aum Shinrikyo cult are gradually disappearing. However, in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, the memory of the incident must be passed on to future generations without fading away.