Japanese Officials Investigate Poison Leak in NE China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 11, 2003

Japanese Officials Investigate Poison Leak in NE China

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Four officials from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited the city of Qiqihar in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province at the weekend to investigate an accident in which at least 36 people were injured by chemical weapons left by Japanese troops during their invasion of China (1937-45).

The team, headed by Kawakami Fumihiro, a foreign ministry official in charge of China affairs, visited the sites where the chemical weapons were found and the location where they are presently stored. They brought flowers to the 34 victims who are staying at the People's Liberation Army Hospital No 203 in Qiqihar for medical treatment. Another two victims were not hospitalized because their injuries were not serious.

A Xinhua reports said Sunday that Chinese victims and their families have demanded compensation.

Details about the demands are not available, but Chinese foreign ministry officials are reported to have been negotiating with the Japanese side in the past two days.

On Friday, the Chinese Government urged Japan to seriously deal with the accident. Fu Ying, director of the Department of Asian Affairs of China's Foreign Ministry, lodged solemn representations with the Japanese Embassy in Beijing.

The chemical weapons, stored in five metal barrels, were discovered last Monday morning at a construction site. One of the barrels was carelessly broken by workers at the site, causing an oil-like substance to leak out and penetrate into the soil.

Unaware of the nature of the material, two workers later cut the barrels into pieces and sold them to a recycling facility in a residential community.

Things were made worse when the polluted soil from the building site was moved to other locations as part of the construction work.

After technical analysis, experts later confirmed that the five barrels had been left by the Japanese army and contained mustard gas.

Of the 34 victims in Hospital No 203, two are close to death, with blood problems and difficulty breathing, said Min Xinge, director of the hospital's Medical Affairs Office.

Another eight patients were last night in serious conditions. The other patients were under observation and it was possible that their condition could worsen, Min said.

A typical characteristic of poisoning caused by mustard gas is pruritus (severe itching) and burning, especially on a man's genitalia, the official said.

Last Monday, Li Huizhen, a 31-year-old rural worker among these victims who comes from Central China's Henan Province, had 30 per cent of his skin affected by burning on August 5 but this had spread to 95 per cent by yesterday, Min noted.

Dozens of top experts on chemical weapons, burns treatment and relevant diseases from various army hospitals, China's Ministry of National Defence and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been invited to Qiqihar to provide the victims with emergency medical treatment and to deal with the aftermath of the accident.

The hospital has already spent more than 350,000 yuan (US$42,000) of its own money to treat the victims. It has used the best medicine it can get, said Min Xinge.

The Qiqihar city government organized a police contingent to prevent the pollution from spreading. Eleven sites polluted by the gas have been strictly controlled and disinfected.

Everyday life and work in Qiqihar is continuing as normal and the urban areas are quite calm, Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.

In another development, a bomb with nerve gas was found yesterday in Changsha, capital city of Central China's Hunan Province. It belonged to the air force of the Japanese invaders and had been buried for nearly 60 years. But nobody has been reported poisoned by gas from the bomb.

Background on Japanese chemical weapons left in China

The Japanese army developed and used chemical weapons on a large scale during its war of aggression against China during World War II.

After the accidental poison gas leak in Qiqihar, a city of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released the following background information.

Before the surrender, the Japanese invading army buried or abandoned chemical weapons in China so as to conceal their crime.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, part of the abandoned chemical weapons were found in central, east and north China, and especially in northeast China.

In the early years of the People's Republic, many people were injured by the abandoned chemical weapons.

The Chinese government has destroyed part of the weapons that had been discovered, but due to the limited resources at that time, quite a few of the weapons found were buried temporarily. The Japanese weapons found later were also disposed of in a similar way.

With the reform and opening up process in China, the country has participated more in international affairs. During the drawing up of the Convention on the Banning of Chemical Weapons, the Chinese government insisted that solving the problem of abandoned chemical weapons be included in the convention.

In the early 1990s, the negotiation of the convention made great progress. This convention stated clearly that it was the obligation of countries to destroy any chemical weapons that they had left behind. The convention came into effect in April 1997.

In the late 1980s, in order to reach an early settlement of this historical issue, the Chinese government demanded in negotiations that the Japanese government should shoulder the responsibility of solving the issue of chemical weapons and eliminate its chemical weapons in China as soon as possible.

In July 1999, following several rounds of negotiations, the twogovernments signed a memorandum on the destruction of the chemical weapons abandoned in China.

In the memorandum, Japan expressed its willingness to endorse the principle and spirit of the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement and Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship.

The Japanese side admitted that Japanese chemical weapons had been abandoned in China and promised to destroy them in accordance with the convention.

The goal of the Chinese government is that all the chemical weapons will be eliminated by Japan completely and safely, but there is still a long way to go to achieve the goal.

The Chinese government will urge the Japanese government to fulfill its promise, so as to eliminate the threat of chemical weapons at an early date.

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