The Daily Yomiuri
September 7, 2003

Toxic arms disposal goes on in China

Tatsuo Shingai and Masatoshi Imai / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

Japan and China began the fourth round of operations Saturday to recover and dispose of poison gas munitions abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army in China's Hebei Province, following a deadly leak of poison gas Aug. 4 in Heilongjiang Province.

However, cleanup efforts, which began three years ago, have so far removed less than 10 percent of the 700,000 poison gas munitions believed to have been abandoned in China.

On Aug. 4, five rusty drums were unearthed from a depth of 1.5 meters by a power shovel at a construction site in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province. Three of the five drums contained a yellowish liquid.

All of the drums were sold to a junk dealer later in the day, but by the end of that day, construction workers and the junk dealer reported symptoms including watering eyes and blisters covering their entire bodies.

The Qiqihar municipal government immediately suspended work at the construction site and confiscated the drums.

A team of experts sent to China by the Japanese government five days later to examine the case detected traces of a mustard gas used by the Imperial Japanese Army around the site. The highly toxic chemical weapon causes such symptoms as skin burns and breathing difficulty.

The man who opened the drums died of burns covering most of his body, and more than 40 people were injured after coming into contact with gas that leaked from the drums.

"You usually don't expect a poisonous substance to leak from a drum," said Norihiko Furusawa, 60, of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, one of the experts sent to China. The five drums were buried at a site that had not been noted in past surveys of chemical weapons buried by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Recovery of the chemical weapons is being conducted in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention that went into effect in 1997.

Through more than 20 surveys conducted since 1991, the Japanese government determined that about 700,000 chemical weapons were still buried in China. But the Chinese government claims there are about 2 million.

Only 36,000 poison gas munitions have been recovered in the three operations to date.

Takao Oshikawa, 61, a former Self-Defense Forces officer who participated in one of the recovery projects in northern Heilongjiang Province last year, said, "If I said I wasn't scared, I'd be lying."

Oshikawa, a chemical agents specialist, was one of 33 experts, including 16 serving and former SDF members, who were sent to China.

Chemical weapons are disposed of inside a sealed tent by lowering the internal pressure to prevent the leak of poison gas.

Workers disposing of the chemical agents wear rubber protective gear, but are only able to work for 40 minutes at a time as the gear is nonporous.

The sweat can literally be poured out of a worker's boots after a 40-minute session.

Fuses on chemical weapons are encased in plaster if there is any danger they might explode.

"I was exhausted from worrying about both explosions and gas leaks," Koji Nishikori, 41, an SDF member, said.

Over three weeks, Nishikori and others recovered 467 poison gas shells.

The Japanese experts were forbidden to have any contact with local residents. "I can understand that, in view of their feelings toward Japanese," Oshikawa said.

Thirty-nine experts are participating in the most recent recovery project that started Saturday. They hope to recover 52 chemical weapons in two weeks.

The recovered chemical weapons will be incinerated at a factory that is still in the planning stages.

But as many as 670,000 chemical weapons are said to be buried in eastern Jilin Province. It is believed that it will be almost impossible to recover all of them, even though the convention deadline is 2007.

According to the Chinese government, about 2,000 people have been affected by chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Li Chen, 58, filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government in Tokyo District Court in 1996, seeking compensation.

According to a court statement, Li suffered skin burns, dizziness and nausea after being exposed to poison gas in shells that clogged a pump during the dredging of a muddy river in Heilongjiang Province in 1974.

Li reportedly was first given cold medicine at the hospital. Although he was found later to have been exposed to yperite, a kind of mustard gas, he was unable to receive the correct medical treatment and was hospitalized repeatedly.

The statement said Li passed out due to the pain he felt undergoing treatment that involved cutting burned skin off with scissors. His child was bullied because Li was wrongly believed to have contracted an infectious disease.

"Please don't let there be any more victims like me," Li said in the district court in May last year. The ruling on the case is expected to be handed down on Sept. 29.

In May this year, the district court rejected a compensation claim filed by five other Chinese who said they had been harmed by chemical weapons dumped by the Imperial Japanese Army.

The court acknowledged that the Japanese government had failed to take care of chemical weapons left by the army, but said it was very difficult for the government to recover the weapons as it had no sovereignty rights in China.