Catches may still contain poisonous chemicals.
Vietnamese
food safety authorities have warned against eating seafood caught off the coast
of the four central provinces affected by the environmental disaster caused by
the Vietnam unit of Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group.
The
Vietnamese government announced on June 30 that the Taiwan-owned steel firm
Formosa was responsible for discharging toxic chemicals into the ocean, killing
marine life and poisoning fish in four central provinces.
Nearly
three month after the announcement, Minister of the Environment Tran Hong Ha
said last week that it’s now safe to swim in the affected provinces and that
fish farming could resume in most areas.
However,
the big question that remains unanswered is whether it is safe to eat fish
caught within 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers) off the coast of the four
provinces.
Thorough
research and strict supervision by the Ministry of Health are needed to make
sure it is safe to eat fish caught off the central coast, Nguyen Thanh Phong,
the director of the ministry's Food Safety Department, has said.
He added
that the Health Ministry, supported by a team of experts and scientists, is set
to make its final conclusion by early September.
“We need
time to make a full assessment which requires enough statistical samples and a
larger sample size. We can’t rush this,” Phong said, adding that he hoped the
results will confirm the government’s announcement last week that chemicals,
including cyanide, have been diluted.
“As the
Prime Minister has said, the number one concern is the people’s wellbeing.
That’s why we have to wait for a more detailed report before we can answer
whether it is now safe to eat the seafood,” Phong continued.
The
senior food safety official strongly warned the public to refrain from eating
fish in the affected areas until the pollution has been cleaned up.
Even
though the government may have managed to mitigate the consequences by bringing
down the concentration of harmful chemicals in the sea water to acceptable
levels, that doesn’t mean it is already safe to eat fish, Phong said.
He
explained that harmful chemicals in the sea water may have fallen, but residue
can still be found in the seafood.
At a
conference last week, Mai Trong Nhuan, who led a team of Vietnamese and foreign
scientists to study the consequences of the toxic disaster, said that marine
life, including sea water and sea-bed sediment, is generally within safety
standards for aquaculture farming, fishing and tourism activities.
He also
told the conference that the toxic chemicals the steel factory dumped into the
sea, including cyanide, phenols and iron hydroxide, have shown signs of waning.
The
marine ecosystem, coral reefs, sea grass and other marine resources which were
seriously damaged in terms of scale and species has begun to recover.
However,
since then the media has reported chemical residue still present in fish caught
offshore.
The steel
plant, owned by the Formosa Plastics Group, took responsibility for the
disaster in June and pledged to pay $500 million to clean up the pollution and
compensate those affected.
The mass
fish deaths have ravaged local fisheries, disrupted people’s lives and hit
tourism in the central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua
Thien – Hue.
The
government said in a report in July that the disaster had harmed the
livelihoods of more than 200,000 people, including 41,000 fishermen.
An estimated
115 tons of fish washed up ashore along more than 200 kilometers of the central
coast in April, the report said.
Formosa
Plastics’ $10.6 billion steel complex in Ha Tinh province includes a steel
plant, a power plant and a deep sea port.
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