The Okinawa Defense Bureau recently found dioxin and other hazardous chemicals from barrels unearthed at a former U.S. military installation in the city of Okinawa, officials said Monday, suggesting they may have contained herbicides or agricultural chemicals.

The bureau, however, said the possibility that the barrels were carrying defoliants used in the Vietnam War is slim because it did not detect one of the two major components of toxic Agent Orange.

"We cannot say it was Agent Orange at this stage," Daisuke Misawa, a bureau official, told The Japan Times.