Minamata disease victims tell hardships at Tokyo seminar
February 18, 2006Minamata disease suffers talked about their hardships at a seminar in Tokyo on Saturday, with Eiko Sugimoto from Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, telling some 150 audience members that the mercury-poisoning disease has damaged not only the ocean but also people's minds and human relationships in the nearby communities. ''It was once said that fish gush out of the Minamata ocean, but the trees near the port began perishing and then fish started dying massively,'' Sugimoto, 67, said, describing the beginning of the tragedy. ''And then, sickened cats started jumping into the sea after eating the dead fish.''