In 1952, a series of strange incidents occurred in Japan, and more than 50,000 cats committed suicide by jumping into the sea, but they did not attract attention. In the end, due to the inaction of the local government, a total of 12,615 people also developed abnormalities, resulting in 1,246 deaths.
It happened near Minamata Bay in Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu Island, Japan, a small bay known locally as the Sea of Fire, and the 50,000 inhabitants living in the vicinity have lived a prosperous life mainly through fishing.
However, since 1952, a strange phenomenon has suddenly occurred in the area, that is, a large number of dead fish corpses floating on the surface of the sea in the bay.
Immediately afterwards, many local cats began to tremble, their limbs twitched, and they walked up and down, some cats began to hit the wall constantly, some cats kept drooling, and some jumped and began to run suddenly, as if they were possessed by something.
At first, it was only the town's feral cats that had this condition, and slowly more and more domestic cats began to get sick, and the locals called this phenomenon "cat choreography".
However, the dancing cat did not attract much attention, but occasionally mentioned after tea, but in January 1953, this strange disease intensified, and later, the cats in the town began to commit suicide by jumping into the sea en masse.
In just one year in 1953, more than 50,000 cats in the Minamata Bay area died by jumping into the sea, and then local pigs and dogs developed similar symptoms.
The carcasses of animals scattered by the sea finally made the inhabitants of Shi Yoshi panic, and people made various speculations about this strange phenomenon: the most common of which is that the local area is cursed by demons, and perhaps bad luck will befall humans.
Unexpectedly, the message was finally fulfilled, and on April 21, 1956, three years after the strange disease of the animals, a five-year-old girl, Shizuko Tanaka, became the first comatose.
At first, she just walked shakily, often fell for no reason, and gradually she began to be unable to control her body, slurred speech, and unable to move her hands and feet.
Although she was taken to the best hospital in the area for treatment, her condition deteriorated dramatically, she began to suffer from generalized spasms, blindness in both eyes, and finally died tragically in darkness two years later, followed by a large number of villagers, including Shizuko Tanaka's two-year-old sister.
The originally quiet and peaceful small village was shrouded in the shadow of death, due to the great impact of the incident, the Japanese government had to send people to investigate the whole thing, medical experts examined some patients, and were surprised to find that the brain central nervous system and peripheral nerves of these patients had been necrotic.
In order to find out what happened, investigators immediately investigated the surroundings of Minamata Bay, and the results revealed that the initiator behind this series of strange phenomena was a nitrogen fertilizer factory built near Minamata Bay in 1925.
The nitrogen fertilizer plant started with a building and acetic acid plant here, and as the industry grew, it began producing nitrogen ethylene in 1949 and discharging untreated industrial wastewater directly into the river.
This river is the river where the villagers around Shuiyu Bay live, and people drink daily, do laundry and cooking, and catch fish and shrimp on weekdays. These untreated industrial wastewater contains a large amount of the chemical mercury, which flows into the river and contaminates the fish and shrimp.
Because nearby villagers have been eating these poisonous fish and shrimp for a long time, this irreparable tragedy has finally occurred.
In fact, long before the cats near Minamata Bay were abnormal, cats in the surrounding area were extinct, and the signs of tragedy appeared long ago.
Although Japanese officials sent many medical experts to help, after a period of time, people slowly found that there was no way to solve the problem.
Because water and disease have two extremely terrifying points, the first is that water and disease cannot be completely cured, patients with mild diseases can only stagger and walk for a lifetime, and those seriously ill patients can only wait for death.
The second point is that water and disease are highly contagious, and even if pregnant women suffer from mild water and disease, their offspring must be the torment of water and disease patients will continue in the next generation.
Because the local area is in a critical stage of the industrialization process, in order to quickly recover the economy after the war, slowly the Japanese government began to hesitate in the face of this tragic man-made disaster, and people in high positions were unwilling to give up their low-hanging fruit for these patients, but only superficially required the nitrogen fertilizer plant to make some treatment measures for the discharged industrial wastewater, and then let its development no longer be restricted.
However, instead of taking corrective measures after this incident, the nitrogen fertilizer plant intensified its production scale, expanding its production scale, and the large amount of mercury deposited in the river water was like a time bomb.
The ticking time bomb exploded twelve years later, when thousands of people died of the disease in 1968, and the Japanese government's hoax was finally discovered, and angry masses took to the streets to protest.
The families of the victims have filed lawsuits with the Japanese Supreme Court, accusing the Japanese government of inaction, and the masses have waged a protracted war with the Japanese government in order to protect their own interests.
It was not until 2004 that the protracted road of rights defense was finally won, and although the victims received monetary compensation, it was not the inactive government that was ultimately found responsible by the court, but the enterprises that were "used as pawns". For a long, long time, the outcry for the government to take responsibility has not stopped.
The Japanese government has gained huge benefits in this way, but the damage to the local ecological environment has become irreparable, and since then, the Japanese government has spent a full 48.5 billion yen and 14 years to clean up the local environment.
Until now, the annual high management fee is still required, which can be said to be more than worth the loss, and this has to be reminiscent of the nuclear wastewater discharge incident in Japan some time ago.
I only hope that the Japanese government can see the truth of the matter, stop as soon as possible, recognize itself, and not repeat the mistakes of the past.
