minamata bay

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MINAMATA BAY ( CLASS GROUP ACTIVITY) ASIA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY 1. Sitti Sauda binti kuyong 201301-00024 2. Faridah Donna 201301-0020

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THE HISTORY OF MINAMATA BAY

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Page 1: Minamata bay

MINAMATA BAY ( CLASS GROUP ACTIVITY)

ASIA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

1. Sitti Sauda binti kuyong 201301-00024

2. Faridah Donna 201301-0020

3. Fresnah binti Ompiduk 201301-00017

Page 2: Minamata bay

HISTORY

Minamata is a small factory town. Minamata Bay is a bay on the west coast of Kyūshū island, located in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. The bay is part of the larger Shiranui Sea which is sandwiched between the coast of the Kyūshū mainland and the off-lying islands of Kumamoto and Nagasaki prefectures.

The coastline is rugged, with many inlets and coves which act as the spawning grounds of fish and shellfish. A great variety of creatures live in this area.

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Minamata Discovered• Minamata disease (Japanese: 水俣病 Hepburn: Minamata-byō?), sometimes

referred to as Chisso-Minamata disease ( チッソ水俣病 Chisso-Minamata-byō?), is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. A congenital form of the disease can also affect foetuses in the womb.

• Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956. It was caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea, which, when eaten by the local populace, resulted in mercury poisoning. While cat, dog, pig, and human deaths continued for 36 years, the government and company did little to prevent the pollution. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be called "dancing cat fever.

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Minamata Bay was heavily polluted in the 1950s and 1960s by wastewater

The Chisso Corporation's factory in Minamata, particularly by methylmercury.

The highly toxic compound bio accumulated in fish and shellfish in the bay which, when eaten by the people living around the bay, gave rise to Minamata disease. More than 10,000 people were affected.

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The picture of situation

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( 1,784 of whom had died )

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Solving Minamata

• March 2001, 2,265 victims had been officially recognized (1,784 of whom had died) and over 10,000 had received financial compensation from Chisso. By 2004, Chisso Corporation had paid $86 million in compensation, and in the same year was ordered to clean up its contamination.On March 29, 2010, a settlement was reached to compensate as-yet uncertified victims.

• A second outbreak of Minamata disease occurred in Niigata Prefecture in 1965. The original Minamata disease and Niigata Minamata disease are considered two of the Four Big Pollution Diseases of Japan.

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Continue of Solving Minamata• “The mercury poisoning “incident” in Minamata has been grandly

pronounced resolved at least four times since the pollution began in 1932 and Minamata disease was officially recognized in 1956.

• In 1959 the Chisso Corporation paid compensation to fishing cooperatives and “sympathy payments” to patients that required them to renounce all future claims against the company. It did not accept responsibility for the disease. At the same time, it also installed a “Cyclator” to purify its wastewater, without announcing that the Cyclator did not remove mercury.

• At a ceremony at the end of 1959, Chisso’s president publicly drank a glass of water from the Cyclator, without announcing that the wastewater from the acetaldehyde plant, which contained mercury, was not being run through the Cyclator. An eerily similar performance took place on March 24, 2011 when Tokyo’s Governor Ishihara Shintarō drank a glass of tap water on national television to “prove” that it was safe from radioactive contamination.

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Minamata today• Minamata disease remains an important issue in contemporary

Japanese society. Lawsuits against Chisso and the prefectural and national governments are still continuing and many regard the government responses to date as inadequate.

• On Monday, March 29, 2010, a group of 2,123 uncertified victims reached a settlement with the government of Japan, the Kumamoto Prefectural government, and Chisso Corporation to receive individual lump sum payments of 2.1 million yen and monthly medical allowances.

• Most congenital patients are now in their forties and fifties and their health is deteriorating. Their parents, who are often their only source of care, are into their seventies or eighties or already deceased. Often these patients find themselves tied to their own homes and the care of their family, effectively isolated from the local community.

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References

• Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_Bay^ "Memorial service marks Minamata tragedy's 50th year", Japan Times, 2 May 2006, retrieved 29 October 2006 (free registration required)