Two kids poisoned by abandoned Japanese chemical bombs in NE China

Two Chinese children became ill last week after touching liquid leaking from a chemical bomb deserted by the Japanese army during the Second World War in northeast China's Jilin province, official sources said on Wednesday.

China's health authority has sent a medical team to treat them, and doctors with the local hospital said the infected kids were in safe condition and the medical treatment was in progress.

Official sources said the incident happened at 1:00 pm on July 23, when four kids were taking a bath in a stream of the Lianhuapao farm, Dunhua city of Jilin province. They found the bomb in the water and two of them touched the liquid flowing from it. Their hands and feet became flared and they suffered serious injuries.

The kids were sent to the local Dunhua Hospital, where their symptoms were diagnosed as mustard gas poisoning.

After careful examination, Chinese experts confirmed that the bomb was among those abandoned by the Japanese army during World War II.

Sources from the Foreign Ministry said the Japanese side will soon send representatives to investigate the case.

Earlier this month, two Japanese veterans came to identify some possible sites of abandoned chemical weapon in Jilin but no official result has been released from either the Chinese or Japanese side yet.

The two Japanese, Toguchi Yosiktaro and Kobayashi Toshio, worked in the 16th field operation weapon factory in Jixi City in Heilongjiang Province and Dunhua City in Jilin Province during Japan's invasion into China from 1937 to 1945.

Statistics show that at least 2,000 Chinese have so far become victims of the discarded Japanese chemical weapons since the war ended.

Source: Xinhua