Japan pays China gas damages

The issue has caused widespread anger in China

Japan has agreed to pay China 300m yen ($2.7m) to help resolve a row over chemical weapons left over from World War II, China's foreign ministry says.

The payment follows an incident in which one man died and more than 30 others were injured in a mustard gas leak.

The gas seeped from old barrels unearthed on a building site in the north-eastern Chinese city of Qiqihar in August.

The weapons had been left in China by the Japanese army in World War II.

Public anger

Chinese officials are also demanding that Japan clean up any other chemical weapons it abandoned in China.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said: "The incident severely harmed the Chinese people's personal safety and national feelings, and no sum of money can compensate for it."

He added: "China demands that Japan... speed up the process of destroying chemical weapons abandoned in China by the invading Japanese army."

Japan is paying the money to help dispose of abandoned chemical weapons, the Japanese news agency Kyodo says.

Beijing says some money will also be given to the victims and their families.

The gas leak caused widespread anger in China, with more than a million people signing an online petition demanding compensation for the Chinese victims

In a separate incident in September, a Japanese court awarded more than 180m yen ($1.5m) compensation to victims of other weapons left in China by the Japanese army at the end of World War II.

Japan abandoned an estimated 700,000 chemical weapons in China.