Chinese experts have discovered new evidence of the Japanese wartime atrocity in China -- a toxic gas experiment plant in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The plant, known to the locals as "Bayanhan", is located on the grassland of the Ewenki Autonomous Banner in Hulun Buir City, said Xu Zhanjiang, a researcher on the history of Japanese biological war with the Harbin Municipal Academy of Social Sciences in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

"The site covers more than 110 square kilometers, extending nine kilometers from east to west and 13 kilometers from north to south," said Xu. "Pits big and small are seen on the grassland even today."

The Inner Mongolia-based researcher said the Japanese soldiers used to conduct biological tests here during the World War II, by blasting gas bombs in pits buried with live human beings and animals.

He said a veteran Japanese soldier also gave a vivid account of his army's biological tests in Inner Mongolia in a biography about the Japanese chemical warfare in China.

Abide, a native Mongolian born in 1920, said a friend of his witnessed such tests in 1940. "In the spring of 1941, local herders still smelt a suffocating smell at the site. Many men and cattle were later infected with pestilence."

Xu said the Japanese had set up the toxic gas plant here because the outlying grassland was sparsely populated and therefore other people were unlikely to find out about their atrocity.

"On the other hand, the Japanese army was planning to attack the former USSR from here, because Hulun Buir resembles Russia very much in terms of climate and other natural conditions."

Cultural heritage authorities in Hulun Buir city say they plan to include the plant as a heritage site for better preservation.

(Xinhua News Agency July 3, 2005)