The Chinese victims of Japan's abandoned chemical weapons in Qiqihar will receive compensation of 300 million yen (US$2.8 million) from the Japanese Government in a few days, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Beijing Thursday.

He said the Chinese government would continue to urge the Japanese government to speed up destroying the lethal and environmentally-threatening chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese invaders during World War II, in line with the agreements reached by the two governments and relevant international treaties.

A toxic gas leak killed one person and injured 43 others after barrels of mustard gas were dug up at a construction site in Qiqihar, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Aug. 4.

(Xinhua News Agency December 25, 2003)