Hanaoka Incident

Under a wartime policy of bringing Chinese labourers to Japan, 986 Chinese men were sent in three groups in 1944 and 1945 to the Hanaoka mine (now part of Odate, Akita Prefecture), where the contractor Kajima-gumi was carrying out works including the diversion of the Hanaoka River. They were housed at the Nakayama dormitory and worked under harsh conditions with inadequate food and frequent violence by supervisors.

On the night of 30 June 1945 the labourers, led by Geng Zhun, rose up, killed several Japanese supervisors and fled into the surrounding hills. They were rounded up over the following days by police, military police and local civil defence groups, and were held in the open in front of a community hall and interrogated; more than a hundred died within days. In all, about 419 of the 986 had died by the time of repatriation (some sources give 418).

In 1948 a US military commission at Yokohama tried Kajima-gumi staff and local police officers in a Class B/C war crimes case; six were convicted, including three death sentences that were later commuted, and all were released by the mid-1950s.

Survivors opened negotiations with Kajima in the 1980s, and a 1990 joint statement recorded the company's acknowledgment of responsibility. A lawsuit filed in 1995 ended in a settlement at the Tokyo High Court in November 2000, under which Kajima entrusted 500 million yen to the Red Cross Society of China as a fund for all 986 victims. The wording of the settlement on legal responsibility was subsequently disputed by some plaintiffs and supporters. A memorial service is held in Odate every 30 June, and the Hanaoka Peace Memorial Museum in Odate documents the incident.