Word: sarin
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...Sarin...
Unlike biological agents, which are living organisms that require proper conditions to survive, chemical weapons such as the nerve gases sarin and VX are relatively easy to acquire and stockpile. Chemicals are difficult to manufacture in sufficient quantities for a large-scale attack, however; more likely are isolated assaults such as the 1995 sarin attack on a Tokyo subway that injured thousands and killed...
...kept alive. But chemical weapons aren't well suited for inflicting widespread damage. Unlike germs, chemical agents can't reproduce, observes Tucker. "You have to generate a lethal concentration in the air, which means you need very large quantities." To kill a sizable number of people with sarin, for example, which can be absorbed through the skin as a liquid or inhaled as a vapor, you would need something like a crop-dusting plane--which is why investigators last week were so alarmed to find a manual for operating crop-dusting equipment while searching suspected terrorist hideouts. Still, to attack...
Indeed, the most devastating nonmilitary chemical attack ever, by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Tokyo in 1995, killed only a dozen people. One reason is that the delivery method was crude: cultists dropped plastic bags of sarin (smuggled in lunch boxes and soft-drink containers) on a subway platform and pierced them with umbrella tips. Also the amounts were relatively small. Says Smithson: "Any bozo can make a chemical agent in a beaker, but producing tons and tons is difficult." Aum Shinrikyo tried to make the stuff in bulk, recruiting scientists and spending at least $10 million, but it failed...
...Indeed, the most devastating nonmilitary chemical attack ever, by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Tokyo in 1995, killed only a dozen people. One reason is that the delivery method was crude: cultists dropped plastic bags of sarin (smuggled in lunch boxes and soft-drink containers) on a subway platform and pierced them with umbrella tips. Also the amounts were relatively small. Says Smithson: "Any bozo can make a chemical agent in a beaker, but producing tons and tons is difficult." Aum Shinrikyo tried to make the stuff in bulk, recruiting scientists and spending at least $10 million, but it failed...