What is Minamata incident?
Minamata disease, sometimes referred to as Chisso-Minamata disease, is a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning. Signs and symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, loss of peripheral vision, and damage to hearing and speech.
What caused the Minamata disease?
Minamata disease is a methylmercury poisoning with neurological symptoms and caused by the daily consump- tion of large quantities of fish and shellfish that were heavily contaminated with the toxic chemical generated in chemical factories and then discharged into the sea.
What happened in Japan with mercury poisoning?
Mercury-containing industrial waste from the Chisso Corporation’s chemical factory continued to be dumped in Minamata Bay up to 1968. Thousands of people who ingested the mercury by eating local fish and shellfish died, and many more displayed symptoms of mercury poisoning including convulsions and paralysis.
What happened to the people of Minamata Bay in the 1950s?
In the mid-1950s, the people of Minamata, Japan began to notice their cats were going crazy and falling into the sea. Some people thought the cats were committing suicide. Soon after, a strange illness appeared to be going around town. The people of Minamata reported numbness in their limbs and lips.
Which poisoning water in Japan is from fishes?
Explanation: The arsenic poisoning water in Japan is from fishes where the industrial effluent was going into the sea containing arsenic.
What pollution causes Minamata?
Minamata disease (M. d.) is methylmercury (MeHg) poisoning that occurred in humans who ingested fish and shellfish contaminated by MeHg discharged in waste water from a chemical plant (Chisso Co. Ltd.).
When did the Minamata disease start?
On May 1, 1956, a doctor in Japan reported an “epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system,” marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
Is Minamata Bay still contaminated?
The government declared the area safe for fishing in 1997. But some fish have been found with high concentrations of methylmercury, and unusually high rates of contamination are still found in sediment in Minamata Bay, though officials say they are within safety standards.
What was wrong with the cats in Minamata Bay?
Minamata disease is a neurological disease caused by severe mercury poisoning. Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956. The animal effects were severe enough in cats that they came to be named as having “dancing cat fever.”