Amid deepening jitters that Japan may become a target of terrorists, government officials on Tuesday held a drill simulating massive casualties in an urban chemical attack.
About 170 officials from the Cabinet Secretariat, police, defense and other agencies, prefectural and city officials spent four hours in the simulated chemical attack on Kawasaki, where there were "a substantial number" of dead and injured people, government official Seiji Oba said.
Using disaster manuals, officials were asked to respond to the scenario without any details beforehand, the first such exercise of its kind, Oba said.
The drill comes amid mounting concerns that terrorists could strike in Japan. Earlier this month, Tokyo was reportedly cited by the al-Qaeda terror network as a potential target if the country sends troops to Iraq. Shots were also fired toward the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad last week.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was among one of the first to back the U.S.-led war against Iraq and he received Diet approval in July to dispatch peacekeepers to help with reconstruction.
But earlier this month, the government said it would delay the long-discussed plans to send troops because of deteriorating security.
Japan conducted large-scale counterterrorism exercises in 2002 in major cities before the World Cup soccer finals, which Japan cohosted with South Korea.