In an unprecedented ruling, the Tokyo District Court on Monday ordered the state to pay a total of 190 million yen to 13 Chinese who lost relatives or suffered health problems due to weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army at the end of World War II.
It is the first time a Japanese court has recognized the government's responsibility for wartime gas barrels abandoned in China.
The lawsuit was filed in 1996 by the 13 plaintiffs over three incidents in China's Heilongjiang Province: leakages of poison gas in 1974 and 1982, and the explosion of an artillery shell in 1995.