The landscape lies silent except for the sluggish rolling of waves. Every so often, black oil bills wash onto the shore. Except for a few twisted balding trees, no sign of life stirs on the beach. Further up the road at Changi Point — "Business as usual" at the shops along the main road. Outside a provision shop, a mother sits in a low ratan chair feeding her 12 year old child. The child gurgled appreciatively as mother spoons porridge into her mouth. Her twisted, deformed underdeveloped body jerks convulsively as she makes random grabs for the spoon. Neighbours walk by without second glances. A 'polluted child' — such sights are slowly becoming familiar. Inside the shop, a nervous doctor on TV being interviewed for newsreels reluctantly admits the possibility of yet another new disease due to industrial pollution.......

A nightmare?

No, A possible reality in Singapore.

A reality that already existed 20 years in Japan.

A reality that now exists in Canada.

In 1955, the rude shock of manmade diseases awakened the industrialised society in Japan....It started with the horrified scene of cats beginning to commit suicide in the small fishing village in Minamata. In a 1973 report for 'Kogai', a newsletter from Japan, Anthony Carter wrote:

The cats who were fed a very heavy diet of fish caught in the bay, would go into fits of uncontrolability, frothing at the mouth and showing signs of impaired motor coordination. During the final stages of the anguish before death the cats would loose all touch with the reality about them and end it all by throwing themselves into the sea.

In the beginning, the local population paid no more than passing attention to this phenomena although they found it to be most curious. It was thought that the cats had contracted some disease perculiar only to cats. But the day of reckoning was finally at hand — about 17 years ago, the first human victims of the methyl mercury poisoning began to appear in ill-fated Minamata City, Japan.

The mercury poison was found to be coming from the waste of a chemical fertiliser factory known Chisso Corporation operating in the same city. Although it did not seem like a large amount of mercury in the waste dumped into the bay, this chemical manufacturing outfit had been for years prior to the advent of the dying cats, using mercury compounds as a catalyst in certain manufacturing processes. Furthermore, what was not taken into account was the way in which natural food chains such as those existing in the ocean have a great ability to concentrate compounds, including mercury. So as a result, the fish that the local fishermen were catching was tainted with great concentration of mercury much higher than the concentration to be found in the water of the bay.

Mercury as a compound, damages the brain and spinal cord so that there is a loss of the ability to walk, speak, write and feel. In the worst cases, heavy mercury poisoning results in death of a very agonising sort. But perhaps much worse than death is to be left alive and reduced to the status of a living vegetable with only a small part of the original mental and physical capacity left functioning. Many of the victims of the Minamata disease, as mercury poisoning in Japan has come to be known, was born diseased because the poison passed the lacental barrier and destroyed their nervous system while they were yet in their mother's womb.

Today, mercury poisoning is spreading in Japan and a second set of victims was discovered and then very recently, a third set of victims has been discovered. Daily in the Japanese Press, one can find again and again articles on the alarmingly widespread extend of mercury poisoning in the Japanese natural environment; The Minamata Disease is on the march and spreading to many other parts of Japan.