Sarin
Fast Facts:
– Synthetic toxin
– Discovered in 1938 in Germany
– Scientists had been trying to create a stronger pesticide
– Extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound
– Colourless and odourless liquid
– Used as a chemical weapon of mass destruction
– Production outlawed in 1997
– Used in the Tokyo subway attack
Scientists in Germany in 1938 were trying to create stronger pesticides and discovered Sarin. The extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound is a colourless, odourless liquid nerve agent and is considered to be a weapon of mass destruction. It easily turns from a liquid to a vapour, meaning inhalation is very easy – even vapour can immediately penetrate the skin. A person’s clothing that contains sarin can release vapour for about half an hour, which can then cause exposure for other people.
Very low concentrations are lethal, with exposure causing suffocation from respiratory paralysis. Death can take as little as one minute after direct inhalation of a lethal dose, unless antidotes are quickly administered. When exposed to a non-lethal dose without immediate medical treatment victims may suffer permanent neurological damage.
Production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed as of April 1997 by the Chemical Weapons Convention 1993 and required the destruction of all stockpiles.
After the discovery, the formula was given to the chemical warfare section of the German Army Weapons Office who promptly ordered it be brought into mass production for wartime use. A production facility was under construction but not finished by the end of WWII. Even so, estimates range from 500kg to 10 tonnes for total sarin production by Nazi Germany. They didn’t use sarin against allied targets.
In the ’50s NATO adopted sarin as a standard chemical weapon and the USSR and US began production for military purposes. In this time an English Royal Air Force engineer died during human testing of sarin. A secret inquest returned a verdict of misadventure, however in 2004 it was reopened and ruled he’d been unlawfully killed.
In 1976 Chile’s intelligence service developed sarin gas to be packaged in spray cans for easy use. It was later admitted it was used in a number of assassinations.
Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Force used chemical bombs, including sarin, to bomb the ethnic Kurdish city of Halabja in 1988 killing an estimated 5,000 people (mostly civilians). In the same year it was used four times against Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war. Sirin has been used in attacks in Syria multiple times between 2013 and 2017 killing an estimated 2,000 people.
On separate occasions nine months apart (in 1994 and 1995), Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo released an impure form of sarin in two attacks. The first attack, an attempted assassination attempt of three judges while testing their sarin, in Matsumoto killed eight people and harmed over 200. The second terrorist attack was in the Tokyo subway and killed 13 people while injuring over 6,200 people. Many senior members of the cult, including the leader and more than 200 members were arrested. The leader and 12 of his senior members were sentenced to death and executed and many others received life sentences.
References:
https://www.murdermiletours.com/blog/deadly-poisons-used-by-murderers-serial-killers-despots
https://www.wired.com/2006/08/the-best-deadly-poisons-ingested-or-inhaled/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsumoto_sarin_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin
April 22, 2021 at 9:20 pm
Okies but if Sarin is dangerous in many forms, how on earth does one destroy it?! Lol
Sarin is one poison I am familiar with. As a poli sci major, it came across a lot in one of my classes (geopolitical war something) and it’s horrible ☹️
April 23, 2021 at 10:04 am
Methods to destroy are incineration or neutralisation (which is adding hot water, and sometimes sodium hydroxide). Not sure which is preferred for Sarin, but if the second is used they then have to store the waste or get the wastewater cleaned.
April 23, 2021 at 10:11 am
Well goodness lol wooowwww
April 22, 2021 at 10:39 pm
I remember the Tokyo subway incident. Nasty stuff.
April 23, 2021 at 10:05 am
Nasty and horrible application.
April 23, 2021 at 12:31 am
There was one point I would have thought this was the nastiest poison but you’ve schooled me, Anita.
April 23, 2021 at 10:06 am
Sadly it really isn’t. It’s considered one of the lesser nerve agents.
April 23, 2021 at 2:03 am
It always amazes me how cruel some people’s terroristic minds must be. Do they value innocent lives so lowly?
Pesticides are tricky. They need to be strong enough to kill unwanted bugs but “harmless” enough consumers can handle residues of them in their food.
April 23, 2021 at 10:07 am
And the “harmless” enough is the problem in the Western world because it’s the low dose, long-term exposure that’s causing problems.
April 23, 2021 at 4:53 am
Poisons found in nature are ok, I mean they are naturally. But the one made by human are just the worst. This one too.
April 23, 2021 at 10:08 am
That’s true. The fact there are so many poisons available in nature, the fact that humans still go hunting for something bigger and badder is shocking.
April 23, 2021 at 7:55 am
A colorless, odorless, lethal chemical weapon of mass destruction…so scary!
April 23, 2021 at 10:10 am
It is really scary. There are probably more odourless things out there than people realise because manufacturers add scent to them (like natural gas) but in a weapon of mass destruction it’s awful.
April 23, 2021 at 11:02 am
Nasty! A real weapon of mass destruction. The problem is, while you can destroy stockpiles, it’s very unlikely that EVERY country will destroy the formula, so probably everyone will hang on to it, just in case. This genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
April 23, 2021 at 11:18 am
And that’s the problem. I believe about 95% (ish) has been destroyed, but as the cult demonstrated, it’s not the responsible parties we have to worry about…
April 23, 2021 at 11:49 am
Nasty stuff. Scary what humans can create.
April 23, 2021 at 12:03 pm
I guess depending what theory you believe, covid is a prime example of that.
April 23, 2021 at 6:33 pm
Humanity does such horrible things… 🙁
The Multicolored Diary
April 24, 2021 at 7:29 am
I know. Sometimes you just have to read some heartwarming stories to reaffirm faith in us as a race.
April 23, 2021 at 11:52 pm
It sounds so much like Bromomethane. That substance allowed Florida to become the winter ( for us) capitol of the Strawberry world.
Methyl Bromide (trade name of bromomethane) is also a colorless, odorless, highly toxic gas. It is injected into the soil to sterilize it. It got started soon after WWII laid plastics on the landscape.
Methyl bromide is said to take no prisoners, it kills everything under that sheet of plastic it is injected under.
In a world six degrees from here it might have been Sarin, Maybe just if someone else discovered it.
Strawberry growers had 20 years to phase out use of Methyl Bromide. That was completed five years ago and they are petitioning to get it back, less than a scorched earth is too much work.
April 24, 2021 at 7:30 am
Oh, that makes me shiver, BF. Everything under the plastic and they want to bring it back?? Just, no!
April 24, 2021 at 6:48 am
It’s heart-breaking what devastation humans can wreak. Sarin is one of the poisons I think about on a regular basis because there is a neighbor’s child who carries that name. I can’t imagine what her parents were thinking.
April 24, 2021 at 7:31 am
What a terrible legacy in naming your child that. I agree, what were they thinking? Surely they had to have heard of the poison?
April 25, 2021 at 12:55 am
A pleasant little bumping off of a rich uncle is one thing, but the mass destruction totally freaks me out. =(
Black and White: S for Shangri-La
April 25, 2021 at 8:46 am
Mass destruction is a terrifying thing. You have to wonder at the mental space someone who decides they need a WoMD sits in.