Minamata - 50 years on

Today in Minamata, a Kumamoto port town and a name synonymous with tragedy, they marked the fiftieth anniversary of "official recognition" of the appalling mercury-poisoning disaster. This notorious pollution case disgraced not only the company that dumped the waste, but the government too. Basically, the facts are that the Chisso Corporation dumped industrial waste into the sea. The waste contaminated fish, and the fish were eaten by locals. The methyl mercury entered the human system and destroyed the central nervous system of the brain. Some amazing photos were taken by W. Eugene Smith and Aileen Smith showing the plight of Minamata victims to the world. This is a photo of one of their photos. It shows cross-sections of three brains. The lower brain is healthy. The middle brain is from an eight year old girl who died two years and nine months after contracting "Minamata disease". The top picture shows the brain of a seven-year-old boy - his brain gradually eroded by the mercury over a period of four years. As far as disasters go, this was about as shameful as it gets. Man, money, and political power, combining with devastating effect.