Japanese Capital Braces for Attack That Never Comes

TOKYO — “Ladies and gentlemen, April 15 is just about over,” TBS-TV anchorman Bun Yamamoto declared at the opening of his late-night news show, “and nothing has happened!”

Normally, “nothing has happened” would not be the most promising lead-in for a news broadcast. But Saturday in Tokyo, no news was indeed the biggest news. This teeming city had braced for disaster following a raft of rumors concerning supposed terrorist threats from a secretive cult.

In fact, though, millions of people went about their business as usual, and nothing untoward happened.

The scary rumors stemmed from some vague writings by Shoko Asahara, self-styled “Venerated Master” of the religious sect Aum Supreme Truth, that a disaster would occur April 15. Because Asahara’s cult is considered the prime suspect in last month’s poison gas killings on the Tokyo subway, police and the public are wary about what the guru and his followers might do next.

Accordingly, as rumor piled on rumor last week that the sect was planning something horrible for April 15 in Tokyo, the city set up its defenses with no margin for error.

Thousands of police manned the streets all day, searching taxicab trunks and pedestrians’ handbags. In some train stations, coin lockers and trash cans were taped shut. Security checks were established at the entrances to some indoor stadiums and concert halls.

The strongest police presence was seen at Shinjuku, a crowded downtown neighborhood known for big department stores, tall office buildings and a famous red-light district. Many rumors had suggested that Shinjuku was the target of the alleged terrorist act.

A few stores in Shinjuku were closed Saturday. But the train station was crowded with passengers, including schoolgirls in blue uniforms with pink hats. The popular “Romance Car” excursion line from Shinjuku to the ancient capital of Kamakura reported that most trains were sold out, as would be normal for such a bright Saturday in early spring. Department stores that were open in Shinjuku were almost empty in the morning but drew more customers as the day passed.

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The heavy security seemed to have been triggered mainly by rumors. And the rumors seemed to be based on a brief passage in a recent book by cult guru Asahara, an admirer of Adolf Hitler and a student of occult lore.

Asahara maintains that earthquakes--including the one that killed 5,500 people in Kobe in January--are caused by nuclear devices planted in the ground by Japan’s enemies. In a book published this year, he declared that by reading the movements of a certain “earthquake star,” he could see that a major earthquake would occur on April 15.

There was no earthquake in the Tokyo area Saturday. A minor quake was recorded near the city of Kanazawa on the west coast of Japan’s main island. Such small earthquakes occur somewhere in this geologically unstable archipelago almost every day.

Apparently drawing from Asahara’s earthquake prediction for the 15th, rumors began to spread over recent days that the cult would try to cause some disaster in Tokyo on the predicted day. Supreme Truth members denied that any such plan was in the works.