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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 1995)
New train £ has Japan’s YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP)—The old woman stood in front of tiie en trance to Yokohama Station, shop ping bags in hand, and watched a chemical warfare unit suit up and head inside. “Ohmy god,” she said. “Not again.” A month after terrorists released nerve gas in Tokyo’s subways, a pos sible copycat attacker let loose a mys tery gas Wednesday at the main train station in Yokohama, just south of the capital. This time, 300 people got sick, and the nation’s ragged nerves were set on edge again. The attack in Yokohama came af ter one of Japan’s most trying months since World War II, in which cher ished beliefs about the nation’s secu rity have been undermined. Twelve people were killed and 5,500 sickened m the March 20 nerve gas attack in Tokyo. Ten days later, an assailant shot and seriously wounded the nation’s top police official. Last Saturday, stores closed and 10,000 police mobilized in Tokyo amid fears that the doomsday cult suspected in the nerve gas case would deliver a terrorist strike in the capital. Nothing happened. Police said they believe Wednesday’s case was a deliberate attack, and sent hundreds of officers and chemical weapons experts wear ing gas masks to Yokohama Station to look for suspicious objects. As with the Tokyo subway attack, they made no arrests and appeared to have no solid evidence. At least 297 people were taken to hospitals, complaining of stinging eyes, coughs and dizziness after in haling a foul chemical odor at the station, police said. No one was re ported in serious condition; most vic tims were treated and released. Pandemonium erupted as thou sands of commuters raced out of the station. Some 50 emergency vehicles clogged the streets, many with their 1 Wednesday, April 19 - Fumes are released in the Yokohama train station injuring about 300 people. 2 March 20 - Twelve people killed and 5,500 people injured in Tokyo subway sarin gas poisoning. red lights flashing and sirens wailing. Nearly a dozen helicopters buzzed overhead. Police said the Yokohama case appeared different enough from the Tokyo subway attack that it may have been a copycat crime by another per son or group. Sarin, the nerve gas used in Tokyo, was not suspected this time because the victims’ symptoms were different. Wednesday night, dozens of po lice with flashlights crawled on the floors at Yokohama Station, probing cracks for clues. In a nation that boasts the lowest crime rate among leading developed countries, the idea that average com AP muters could face regular attacks by terrorists would have been dismissed as incredible just a month ago. In the past few weeks, Japanese have been treated to one bombshell after another about Aum Shinri Kyo, the religious cult that has become the prime suspect in the nerve gas attack. According to police, the secretive cult has spent the past few years as sembling the ingredients needed to produce sarin, a deadly gas developed by the Nazis in World War II. The cult denies involvement with the nerve gas attack and also said it had nothing to do with Wednesday’s attack in Yokohama. Photos showdarkspot arising above Neptune WASHINGTON (AP)—A huge dark spot has formed in the blue green clouds of Neptune, matching a feature that appeared and then disappeared from earlier photos of the distant gaseous planet. What astronomer Heidi B. Hammel of the Massachusetts In stitute of Technology called “Great Dark Spot ’94" was' detected in photos of Neptune taken by the Hubble Space Telescope last fall. Hammel said Wednesday at a news conference that the finding proves Neptune, a great sphere of mostly gas, w^s a place of constant weather change, like Earth. She said a sequence of photos shows dramatic changes in cloud cover, with bright swirls appearing and disappearing within just a mat ter of weeks. Steve Maran, a NASA astrono mer, said the findings were surpris ing because many thought Neptune was less dynamic. “Neptune is a much more lively world than most of us imagined,” Maran said. Hammel said a dark spot was first detected in Neptune’s south ern hemisphere by the Voyager spacecraft in 1989 and photo graphed from ground observato ries for three years. Images images taken in 1993 indicated the spot vanished. Now the new Hubble shots show it reappeared, this time near Neptune’s north pole. She said the spots, which appear as dark voids in the blue-green clouds, were actually high pressure points of clear air that offered a window through the methane mists that shrouded Neptune. About 17 times more massive than the Earth, Neptune is one of the giant gaseous planets and a first cousin to Jupiter, Saturn and Ura nus. Neptune is 30 times farther from the sun than is Earth and was one of the least known of the giants until the visit by Voyager. ■ Neptune, at about 2.7 billion miles, currently is the most distant planet from the sun in the solar system. Pluto is usually the outer most planet, but its eccentric orbit will carry it inside of Neptune until 1999. Astronomers also released dramatic new Hubble photos of Vesta, the third largest of the objects that orbit within the as teroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The photos were taken as Vesta passed within 154 mil lion miles of Earth. Nebraskan Editor Mana< Assoc. Opinion Page Editor Wire Editor Copy Desk Editor Night News Editors RondaVlasin •Jamie Karl Damon Lae rai namorecm Art Director Kai Wiiken General Manager Dan Shattil Production Manager Katharine Policky Editor JeHZeleny 472-1766 Jeff Robb DeDra Janssen Doug Kouma MattWoody Jennifer Miratsky Kristin Armstrong Advertising Manager Amy Struthers FAX NUMBER 472-1761 The Daily NebraskanMJSPS 144D80) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Ne braska Union 34,1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also has access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Tim Hedegaard, 436-9258. St ALL MATERIAL the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R ^ ^ie paid at Lincoln, NE. 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