Vietnam blames waste water from steel plant for mass fish deaths

Vietnam on Thursday announced that Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation (FHS) has caused mass fish deaths in central coastal Vietnam and the company has committed to compensate some 500 million U.S. dollars to handle the consequences of the incident.

In April 2016, in waters off Vietnam's four central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien-Hue, a serious environmental incident has occurred, head of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung told a press conference held in Vietnam's capital Hanoi.

The incident has caused unusual deaths of marine lives, and led to huge socio-economic loss, affecting lives of local people and having impacts on social security and order, he said.

Over 100 scientists from 30 domestic and international agencies have been mobilized to collect samples and detected an emission source from Ha Tinh province's Vung Ang area where FHS is located.

"A compound of cyanide, phenol and ferric hydroxide whose weight is bigger than seawater was flowing with ocean currents from Ha Tinh to Thua Thien-Hue. The compound is the reason causing mass deaths of fish and sea creatures, especially those living in seabed," Dung said.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment established an inter-sectoral inspection team with leading scientists.

"The team has found out that the FHS has carried out some violation acts. The incident happened during FHS's trial operation when waste water with toxics exceeding allowed level were discharged from FHS into the sea."

On Tuesday, FHS has admitted that they are responsible for causing the incident and put forward five commitments, including economic compensation worth around 500 million U.S. dollars, supports in occupational changes, as well as dealing and restoring marine environment in the four provinces, Dung said.

FHS also pledged to deal with shortcomings, limitations of its waste water treatment system, completing production technology, ensuring thorough handling of toxic wastes before discharging to the environment in accordance with requests of central and local authorities of Vietnam as well as preventing repeat of such incident.

FHS committed to publicly apologizing to the Vietnamese government and people for having let such serious environmental incident happen, according to the Vietnamese official.

"If further violations on environmental protection are detected, FHS will face punishments following regulations of Vietnamese laws," Dung said.

Meanwhile, when responding to a question from reporters, Vietnamese Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan said the public were worried about the incident, which is justifiable as it largely affects the livelihood of people, especially those living in the central coastal region.

"However, overreaction and deductive investigation results can lead to disturbance of information, having negative impact on the investigation," said Tuan.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the mass fish deaths in central coastal localities have caused difficulties to the production and lives of local farmers.

Exploitation output of fisheries in the localities has decreased. In the first six months of 2016, fishery exploitation output in Ha Tinh province stood at some 16,000 tons (down 6 percent year-on-year), Quang Binh 24,000 tons (down 10 percent), Quang Tri 9,000 tons (down 12 percent), and Thua Thien-Hue 13,300 tons (down 30 percent). Endit