UPDATED:
08:02, July 11, 2006
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Experts from China and Japan concluded
on Monday a six-day joint excavation of abandoned wartime chemical weapons in
Ning'an city, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. A total of 689 shells and bombs were
unearthed, of which 210 were confirmed to be Japanese chemical weapons
abandoned after World War II. The identified weapons have been
confirmed to be filled with mustard gas, lewisite, phosgene and other toxins. The weapons had been sealed and placed
in temporary storage, awaiting final destruction, according to the office in
charge of abandoned weapons at China's Foreign Ministry Chinese official statistics show Japan
abandoned at least 2 million tons of chemical weapons at about 40 sites in 15
provinces at the end of World War II, most of them in the three northeast
provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. In the past nine years, China and Japan
have worked together to investigate, excavate, retrieve and pack the dumped
weapons. So far 37,499 chemical weapons and 200
tons of contaminated items have been collected, but none have been destroyed. "We are rather dissatisfied with
Japan's slow pace of disposal, " said Liu Yiren, director of the
Japanese abandoned chemical weapons disposal office under China's Foreign
Ministry. Liu stressed that the weapons, some
still lethal or toxic after decades, remained a threat nationwide, noting
that leakages involving injury or death have occurred. One person died and 43 were injured in
Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, in one such incident last August. More than 50 bombs,
including chemical weapons, were found last month in a village near the same
city. More than 2,000 Chinese have fallen
victim to Japan's abandoned chemical weapons, killed by leading toxic gas
while working at construction sites or on other occasions, according to
China's Foreign Ministry. "The facts have proved again we
have come to a situation where no more delays can be tolerated," Liu
said. China and Japan have agreed to build a
disposal facility for the destruction of retrieved chemical weapons in
Ha'erba Ridge of Dunhua City, Jilin Province, neighboring Heilongjiang, where
670,000 chemical weapons have been confirmed dumped by Japanese troops. So far Japan has not disclosed any
detailed information about where they abandoned or buried their weapons,
making it difficult for China to trace and remove them. The lack of information has also led to
incidents. China and Japan joined the United
Nations Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997. Two years later, they signed a
memorandum, in which Japan admitted that it had abandoned a large amount of
chemical weapons in China at the end of World War II. Under the memorandum, Japan is obliged
to remove the weapons by April 2007 and provide all necessary funds,
equipment and personnel for their retrieval and destruction. However, the Japanese government has
asked for an extension of the disposal deadline to April 2012. "Judging from Japan's current pace
of weapons disposal, we can't be too optimistic about complete destruction by
2012," Liu said. At the request of the Chinese
government, Japan sent more than 20 experts Wednesday to the Ning'an site. Source: Xinhua |