The supportive work for the ongoing 12th World Games in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, is progressing smoothly, according to the event organizers.
At a press briefing on Saturday at the Main Media Center (MMC) for the Games, the organizers provided updates on the progress of various supporting efforts, including accommodation, catering, medical assistance and volunteer services for the event.
As of Friday, multiple official hotels for athletes and Games-related personnel had welcomed a total of 5,055 guests, according to the press briefing.
Over 8,600 volunteers have been deployed across competition venues, the MMC, airports and hotels to facilitate the smooth operation of the Games.
Dubbed the "Chengdu Home", the Athletes' Village for the Games which officially opened on Aug 2, has been accommodating nearly 7,000 participants.
To ensure smooth traffic during the event, local authorities have been implementing temporary traffic management measures from Aug 3 to 17.
They have set up eight dedicated routes for the Games, formulated a specific travel path for each venue.
The authorities have also adjusted and optimized traffic signal timings at 212 intersections, and effectively managed urban traffic flow to ensure that athletes participating in international competitions can reach the venues within one hour.
"During the Games, all our staff are on duty, monitoring event routes and passenger convoys in real time and providing alerts for any abnormal situations using a traffic security command platform dedicated for the Games. We also dynamically adjust police deployment to ensure the coordinated and safe traffic flow for both the event and urban areas with a smart traffic management system," said Qi Bingsen, deputy director of the command office of the Traffic Management Department under the Chengdu Public Security Bureau.
Running from Aug 7 to 17, the Chengdu World Games will feature more than 256 events across 60 disciplines in 34 sports, with a record-breaking 6,679 participants from 116 countries and regions taking part, including 3,942 athletes.
First held in 1981 and staged every four years, the World Games is the highest-level international multi-sport event outside the Olympic Games, and features sports and disciplines that are not on the Olympic program.
Supportive work for Chengdu World Games progressing smoothly: organizers
A video featuring a former member of Unit 731, a notorious Japanese germ-warfare unit during World War II (WWII), was released on Thursday in northeast China's Harbin, revealing details of how the unit used meteorological data to conduct horrific bacterial experiments on human beings.
The video was released by the Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, in which former Unit 731 member Tsuruo Nishijima detailed how the unit used meteorological data to carry out a bacterial dispersal experiment.
The video was recorded in 1997 by Japanese scholar Fuyuko Nishisato and donated to the exhibition hall in 2019, according to the hall, which was built on the former site of the headquarters of Unit 731 in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province.
Jin Shicheng, director of the Department of Publicity, Education and Exhibition of the exhibition hall, said that Nishijima joined Unit 731 in October 1938 and served in the unit's meteorological squad. The squad was not a simple observation section but rather an auxiliary force supporting the unit's field human experiments by measuring wind direction, wind speed, and other conditions to ensure optimal experimental results, according to Jin.
Nishijima confirmed in the footage that "the meteorological squad had to be present at every field experiment." He testified to the "rainfall experiments" conducted by Unit 731, which involved aircraft releasing bacterial agents at extremely low altitudes.
At a field-testing site in Anda City, Heilongjiang, Unit 731 aircraft descended to about 50 meters above the ground. They sprayed bacterial culture liquids onto "maruta" -- human test subjects -- who were tied to wooden stakes. Each experiment involved about 30 people, spaced roughly 5 meters apart. After the experiments, the victims were loaded into sealed trucks and transported back to the unit, where their symptoms and disease progression were recorded over a period of several days.
"Unit 731's bacterial weapons were dropped by aircraft from a height of 50 meters in the open air. Therefore, the meteorological squad needed to observe wind direction and speed, which directly affected the precision and accuracy of the bacterial weapons deployment," said Jin.
Nishijima recounted the harrowing experience of the human test subjects.
"They were fully aware that inhaling the substances would certainly lead to death, so they closed their eyes and held their breath to avoid breathing them in. Their resistance prevented the experiment from proceeding. To compel them to comply, they were forced at gunpoint to open their mouths and lift their heads," said Nishijima.
These experiments, disguised as "scientific research," were in fact systematic tests of biological warfare weapons conducted by the Japanese military. The data generated from these inhumane activities became "research findings" shared among the Japanese army medical school, the medical community, and the military at large.
"At that time, the entire Japanese medical community tacitly approved, encouraged, and even participated in the criminal acts of Unit 731. The unit comprised members from Japan's medical and academic sectors who served the Japanese war of aggression against China. Thus, Unit 731 was not just a military unit but represented an organized and systematic criminal enterprise operating from the top down," said Jin.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center for Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731, and Japan's biological weapons killed more than 300,000 people in China.
Video offers details of Japan's germ-warfare crimes in northeast China
