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In June 1952, Osamu Takada, who lived in Minamata Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, suddenly discovered that his cat was a little strange. It usually came and went like the wind. Now it could not walk steadily. Not only would it fall suddenly while walking, but it would sometimes run like crazy.
At first, Takadaji didn't pay much attention, thinking that his cat was just feeling unwell recently. However, in the days that followed, Takadaji discovered that not only one of his cats in Minamata Town had this condition, but he saw dozens of cases alone.
Such a strange phenomenon naturally attracted the attention of Takadaji, but Takadaji himself was just a fisherman and had no ability to investigate the truth behind it, so he just felt strange in his heart and did not conduct an in-depth investigation into it.
But the development of the incident far exceeded Takada Osamu's expectation. As more and more local cats went crazy in Minamata Town, In January 1953, a fisherman discovered that cats with similar symptoms jumped into the sea and ended their lives. What is even more shocking is that more and more local cats showed such symptoms and committed suicide by jumping into the sea one after another.
Later, according to statistics, in Minamata Town in 1953, more than 50,000 cats showed strange symptoms and jumped into the sea to commit suicide. This situation naturally frightened the locals, but fortunately this strange behavior did not appear in humans, so the locals only regarded it as a disease that occurred in animals.
But three years later, a local child also developed such symptoms. After that, this strange disease began to spread widely among the locals, and the number of deaths began to gradually increase. However, the cause of this disease was not found for a long time, and it was not until many years later that the results of the investigation of the disease were announced.
Living by the sea, attracting factories for development
As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Minamata Town was still a village-level administrative area, but Minamata Town was located next to an inland sea on Kyushu Island, Japan. It was named "Shiranui Sea" because of the occasional fire. Although "Shiranui Sea" hardly convects with the outer ocean, due to the smooth water flow, this inland sea is home to a lot of marine life, and Minamata Town can rely on these marine life to develop.
The "Shiranui Sea" with its rich marine life has easily attracted many people to Minamata Town. This formerly depressed land has slowly turned into a prosperous town. More and more fishermen have gathered in Minamata Town to enjoy the rich resources that the "Shiranui Sea" has brought to people. However, no one could have imagined that many years later, the "Shiranui Sea" would become the culprit of diseases.
The "Shiranui Sea" will not change over a long period of time. The power of nature makes this sea area only become more and more rich. However, with the intervention of humans, the direction of the "Shiranui Sea" will be out of control. If overfishing alone causes a shortage of resources in the "Shiranui Sea", then it is okay to say that a long time will bring this sea area back to the day when it was rich in resources.
But the intervention of a Japanese company plunged the "Shiranui Sea" into the abyss of destruction. In 1906, Nippon Chisso Co., Ltd. was established in Tokyo. At the beginning, the company had only one hydroelectric power plant, but the company found that it could not make money at all from hydropower alone.
Just when Chisso Co., Ltd. was seeking new business opportunities, it happened that World War I broke out. Affected by the war, gunpowder became the most popular thing. So the company changed its original hydropower plan and turned around and invested in the production of gunpowder. In addition to developing gunpowder, Chisso Co., Ltd. also produced fertilizers.
Relying on the bonus from World War I, Chisso Co., Ltd.'s business became bigger and bigger. The once small company also became Japan's largest chemical company during World War I, and it became one of the four major consortiums.
As they made more money and expanded their business, Chisso Co., Ltd. began to pave the way for the next step. Although the company made a lot of money by producing gunpowder and fertilizer, this money was still a war dividend. If the war ended, it was hard to say whether the company could maintain its current glory. So at the suggestion of some people in the company, Chisso Co., Ltd. decided to resume the hydropower plan and set up a chemical company dedicated to hydropower generation. When
was selecting a site for the hydropower company, Minamata Town, which was still at the village administrative level at the time, stepped forward and successfully attracted Chisso Co., Ltd. to settle in with the huge preferential conditions it offered. Therefore, Chisso Co., Ltd.'s chemical plant company was established in Minamata Town.
Discharge wastewater into the sea, thereby causing diseases
If this chemical company only produces hydroelectric power, it will not be a bad thing for Minamata Town, but it will also be a good thing for the people. The chemical company established by Chisso Co., Ltd. in Minamata Town is not only used for hydropower generation. Its most important business is, as the company name says, a chemical company.
Chemical companies will naturally produce industrial wastewater during production. According to normal processes, these industrial wastewater must be purified before being discharged into the ocean or rivers, so as not to pollute the environment.
This money is just an additional expense for chemical companies, because at that time, the investigation of ocean current pollution was not serious. Many chemical companies directed the industrial wastewater they produced into the ocean or rivers, which also polluted the local ocean in Minamata Town.
At first, the industrial wastewater produced by the products produced by the chemical company in Minamata Town did not pollute the ocean very much, and the wastewater discharged did not have a high impact on the human body. Therefore, the industrial wastewater discharged by the chemical company in Minamata Town did not attract people's attention. However, this situation changed in 1931.
In 1931, Chisso Co., Ltd. obtained a patent for the production of acetaldehyde , which meant that the company's chemical factories could produce nitrogen fertilizer . This would bring considerable income to Chisso Co., Ltd. Therefore, Chisso Co., Ltd.'s factories in various places quickly started the production of nitrogen fertilizers after obtaining the production patent.
If the waste generated in the production of nitrogen fertilizers had no impact on the human body, Minamata Town might still be able to live its previous life. However, unscrupulous Japanese chemical companies use lower-cost mercury as a catalyst when producing nitrogen fertilizers. Although the nitrogen fertilizer produced by mercury catalysis greatly reduces the cost and dosage, the industrial wastewater generated by the chemical companies also contains a batch of mercury-containing substances.
Although there is a lot of mercury in the industrial wastewater, which is highly toxic, the chemical companies in Minamata Town don't care at all. All they want is profits. They don't care at all about the harm that mercury-containing industrial wastewater discharged from the production of nitrogen fertilizers will cause to the "Shiranui Sea". All they care about is profits.
This chemical company later discharged hundreds of tons of mercury into the "Shiranui Sea" during the production of nitrogen fertilizer. Because the "Shiranui Sea" is an inland sea and does not convect with the ocean, the hundreds of tons of mercury discharged by the chemical company sank into the "Shiranui Sea". The mercury then entered the bodies of fish and shrimp in the "Shiranui Sea". These fish and shrimp were then fished ashore, and the mercury was transferred to the human body and animals.
Compared with humans, the amount of mercury that small animals can store in their bodies is naturally much smaller. Therefore, animals and shellfish that consume too much mercury will have symptoms first. Cats in Minamata Town suffered from paralysis of their limbs due to excessive mercury intake. They staggered around when walking, and later committed suicide by jumping into the sea due to unbearable pain.
In 1953, in addition to more than 50,000 cats committing suicide by jumping into the sea due to mercury poisoning, there were also deaths of pigs, dogs, birds and shellfish. Because there were no human deaths at that time, it did not cause people to panic. However, in April 1956, a local child also showed symptoms of animals.
Among humans, the first symptoms of mercury poisoning were in several younger children. Compared with adults, children's body immunity is weaker, so they will show up first. When a 5-year-old child develops animal-like paralysis of the hands and feet, difficulty in walking, etc., it instantly caused people to panic.
Especially after the 5-year-old child who was initially diagnosed died in pain after being hospitalized for 28 days, the crowd was even more panic. However, until someone died, the hospital doctors could not determine what disease caused it. Because the symptoms first spread from Minamata Town, the disease was also called Minamata disease.
The emergence of Minamata Disease made Minamata Town instantly become a place that everyone avoided. People who did not have Minamata Disease in Minamata Town were afraid that Minamata Disease patients would pass it on to them, so they stayed away. To the outside world, anyone who walked out of Minamata Town was a suspected carrier of Minamata Disease, and no one wanted to come into contact with anything about Minamata Town.
Minamata Town Yori makes a living from fishing, but when Minamata Disease appeared, no outsiders bought the catch. This also caused the local economy to instantly regress for several years, but people had no choice but to wait for relevant experts to study the source of the disease as soon as possible and treat them.
discovered the cause of the disease, but after many years of rights protection
relevant people and organizations have been studying it since the emergence of Minamata disease. After several years of research, the rumors that Minamata disease was an infectious disease were dispelled, and proof was produced that Minamata disease was caused by eating aquatic products containing chemicals.
Although the source of the disease was found, it also made it impossible for Minamata Town to fish, and the most developed fishery was put on hold. Although the jobs of local people were gone, Minamata disease did not disappear, because the chemical company was still discharging mercury into the "Shiranui Sea", and the source of the disease still existed.
Although someone suggested in July 1959 that the cause of Minamata disease was organic mercury in industrial wastewater, this research conclusion can be said to be true, but local governments and enterprises insist that The company absolutely denied this statement. Naturally, the company's denial was because it was profitable and refused to admit the facts. The local government followed up and admitted because the chemical company is a large local taxpayer and the "god of wealth" that the government wants to protect. Therefore, the local government unconscionably stood against the people and sided with the company.
Although people from both parties were unwilling to admit that Minamata disease was related to the wastewater discharged by chemical companies, people suffering from Minamata disease knew the truth. In order to seek compensation and treatment, people suffering from Minamata disease in Minamata Town demanded compensation of 3 million yen per person from the local nitrogen fertilizer production company.
Faced with such a request, the chemical company not only failed to discuss it carefully, but refused and threatened the people suffering from Minamata disease, and blocked the news about Minamata disease from the outside world, so that these people suffering from Minamata disease were unable to fulfill their reasonable demands.
Due to corporate blockades and the inaction of the Japanese government, even though hundreds of Minamata disease patients held demonstrations to demand that chemical companies stop discharging wastewater, chemical companies still went their own way. It was not until 1965 that things turned around.
In 1965, a mercury poisoning patient was discovered in the central and northern part of Honshu Island, Japan. After investigation, it was found that the cause of the patient's illness was related to wastewater discharged from a Showa Denko factory. In 1967, the victim initiated a lawsuit against Showa Denko and won.
With such a precedent, other people suffering from Minamata disease also started their own appeals. In 1969, 112 Minamata disease patients and their families in Minamata Town sued Chisso Co., Ltd. and won the case in 1973. Subsequently, each person received compensation of 16 million to 18 million yen.
Afterwards, Minamata disease patients sued Chisso Co., Ltd. officials to court in 1975. In the end, the former president of Chisso Co., Ltd. was convicted of negligent death.
After suing the company, these Minamata disease patients pursued the local government, so the governor of Kumamoto Prefecture was also convicted of covering up Minamata disease. In 1996, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama even apologized to Minamata disease patients.
At this point, it seems that Minamata disease patients have completed their demands, but in fact, the impact of Minamata disease on these people is far from being over with a lawsuit. When the human body's mercury content exceeds the standard, the impact on a person will be lifelong, and even affect the next generation. It can be said that the impact of Minamata disease will not be truly shaken off until death.
Although Japan has experienced serious pollution incidents such as the Minamata Disease, they seem to have a short memory. The previous Minamata Disease and the current nuclear wastewater discharge seem to be following their own old path.
What we have to do is to use the example of Japan to remind ourselves not to pollute the environment for our own selfish purposes, otherwise we will still suffer the consequences.
