Minamata disease
Topic: Paths to Modernisation: Japan, China, Korea · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Paths to Modernisation"
Meaning
Minamata disease is a serious illness caused by mercury poisoning. It struck people around the town of Minamata in Japan, where a chemical factory released mercury waste into the sea, and people who ate the poisoned fish fell ill. It showed the hidden cost of Japan's fast post-war growth. In the 1960s, people protested against mercury and cadmium poisoning, and Japan went on to pass some of the strictest environmental laws in the world.
Example
Popular movements in the 1960s against the Minamata mercury poisoning won compensation for the victims. They also pushed the government to pass strong pollution-control laws.
Don't confuse with
- Ashio Mine agitation (1897): Japan's first protest against industrial pollution. Led by Tanaka Shozo, it was against copper-mine waste poisoning the Watarase river. That was in the Meiji period, long before Minamata.
Related concepts
- Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- US Occupation of Japan
- Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution
- Japanese post-war economic miracle
- Shinkansen