The photo, taken on April 9, 2015, shows the ruins of the central hallway cleared out at the core area of the site of the Japanese Unit 731 facility in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province. [Photo: Xinhua]

　　Unit 731 was a secret biological and chemical warfare facility set up in China by the invading Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

　　The Japanese used the facility to conduct secret experiments on its predominantly Chinese captives.

　　The experiments ranged from chemical and biological warfare tests on live humans to vivisections. According to records obtained during the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials, between 3,000 and 12,000 men, women and children died during the experiments conducted at the facility from the mid 1930s until 1945.

　　The clearing process in the Unit 731 site's core area, which consists of a bacteria lab and a prison used to hold people for biological warfare experiments, will be open to the public around the 70th anniversary of China's victory in World War II and the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression this year.

　　Earlier this month, a museum on the campus of Kyushu University in Japan revealed evidence on its medical professors conducting vivisection on eight captured U.S. airmen during World War II.