March 20, Wednesday, 2024

1. People in quake-devastated Wajima City, central Japan, offered their prayers at their family graves on Wednesday to mark the spring equinox. The day is a national holiday that falls in the middle of the Buddhist “higan” period, when people remember their deceased relatives.
2. Victims of the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system were remembered on the 29th anniversary of the deadly incident on Wednesday. On March 20, 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released the toxic nerve gas inside packed rush hour subway cars on three lines in central Tokyo. Fourteen people died and about 6,300 others were injured.
3. A subway operator in the Washington metropolitan area has unveiled the design of a train that Japan’s Hitachi will manufacture in the United States. The operator of the railway connection Washington D.C. with neighboring states, including Maryland and Virginia, awarded Hitachi a contract to provide 256 train cars.