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The news agency said the Imperial military had a combined 2,799 tonnes of mustard gas and lewisite.
Other poisonous agents were 1,059 tonnes of a sneeze-inducing gas and 13 tonnes of hydrocyanic acid, according to the internal documents.
Most agents were discarded in waters in or off Japan in eight locations such as Mutsu Bay in Aomori, northern Japan, and waters off Chiba, southeast of Tokyo.
But some of their remnants are believed to have recently caused illnesses in people in several areas near Tokyo, Kyodo said.
Three construction workers fell ill in early April after sniffing bottles containing liquid and white crystals found on the site of a former Imperial Japanese Navy facility involved in toxic gas research in Hiratsuka, west of Tokyo.
In Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, prefectural officials have detected chemical compounds from well water in the town of Kamisu that appear to have been derived from disintegrated organic arsenicals produced by the prewar Japanese navy for use as poison gas.
SPACE.WIRE |