The chemical weapons were excavated near the Zhujiang river in the city of Guangzhou city, Guandong province, between Nov. 22, 2006, and Feb. 6, said Japan’s Cabinet Office official Yoshinobu Abe.

Some 97 shells recovered were those abandoned by Japan’s Imperial Army at the end of World War II, Abe said. The shells will be sealed in drums and held in temporary Chinese warehouses.

The remaining 364 shells were not Japanese and will be handed over to the Chinese, Abe said.

About 30 Japanese government officials and private-sector experts joined the latest excavation, which was conducted with the “full cooperation of the Chinese government,” Abe said.

A 1997 international convention requires Japan to remove thousands of chemical weapons it abandoned in China by 2007, but Tokyo has asked for a five-year extension.

Japan has removed 37,000 chemical weapons, but an estimated 660,000 are still believed to remain in China.

Japan launched its first excavation in the city in 2005, after three Chinese people were sickened in Guangzhou by inhaling poison gas from what were believed from chemical weapons abandoned by the former Japanese military in June 2005, Abe said.

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