At least 25 people suffered discomfort, of whom about twenty were hospitalized, after being exposed to a substance with a penetrating odor that was thrown in the central Ginza district of Tokyo, the capital of Japan, by an individual who fled. The alleged attacker was wearing a black jacket and covered his face with a white mask. Authorities report that they are still determining what type of substance it is.
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According to Japanese media, citing sources from the Metropolitan Police, a person called the authorities around noon this Monday (5:00 in Spanish peninsular time), from the Ginza Six shopping center, an exclusive department store where major global fashion brands are sold. “There is a strong smell and everyone is coughing,” said the individual.
A woman, cited by the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, said she entered the first floor where the ATMs are located and immediately felt an itch in her nose that forced her to leave. At the entrance, she saw a man who was coughing incessantly. Images taken by an Asahi Shimbun helicopter showed a person being carried on a stretcher to one of the ambulances.
Access to Ginza Avenue, in central Tokyo, which passes in front of Ginza Six, was cordoned off after dozens of ambulances and fire trucks arrived and parked in front of the building.
The incident recalled the sarin gas attack of March 1995, when five members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult entered the Tokyo subway at rush hour and pierced several bags containing the lethal substance with their umbrellas, causing the death of 13 people. More than six thousand people were affected by the attack and some were left with lifelong sequelae.
At least six people involved in the crime, including the mastermind and leader of the cult, Shoko Asahara, were sentenced to death and executed by hanging. Although the streets of Japan have a reputation for being some of the safest in the world, isolated incidents have occurred in busy commercial districts. In 2018, a 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, ran over three people with a rented truck and stabbed four more with a knife in Akihabara, a popular electronics district in Tokyo. Kato was sentenced to death and executed in July 2022.
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