Hundreds in Vietnam Protest Mysterious Mass Fish Die-Off

(Pic: Viet Nam News HÀ NỘI (VNS))

It’s rare for Vietnamese people to publicly protest anything in their Communist country.

But things have gotten out of hand. Over the past month, nearly 50 tons of dead fish have washed up on Vietnam’s shores — without official explanation.

WSJ reports:

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said in a statement Friday that the loss of fish had a serious impact on local people and urged authorities to quickly find the cause. “This is an unprecedented, widespread and complicated environment incident in the country, and the authorities haven’t been able to identify the cause, leading to anger in society,” the statement said.

Agriculture and Rural Development Deputy Minister Vũ Văn Tám released a report to say that the only thing that could be to blame for killing the fish is a highly poisonous toxin. Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has ordered an investigation.

WSJ went on to note that many of the protesters were blaming a new steel plant, Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Group, located in an area heavy on foreign investments due to free-trade agreements with the country. A commenter named William Sites pointed out, “Some of the investors in Formosa’s complex are top government brass. Common knowledge in Vietnam. That’s the ‘rest of the story’.”

There have already been at least 35 other incidents of mass fish die-offs reported just in 2016 alone and we just now got to May. In the meantime, the fish that don’t die end up contaminated with over 80 different pharmaceuticals on average. And let’s not even get into Fukushima radiation…

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