Minamata Bay is a bay in the small factory town of
Minamata on the west coast of
Kyūshū island, located in
Kumamoto Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Kumamoto Prefecture has a population of 1,748,134 () and has a geographic area of . Kumamoto Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the north, Ōita Prefecture t ...
, Japan. The bay is part of the larger
Shiranui Sea which is sandwiched between the coast of the Kyūshū mainland and the off-lying islands of Kumamoto and
Nagasaki prefectures.
The coastline is rugged, with many inlets and coves which act as the spawning grounds of
fish
A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...
and
shellfish. A great variety of creatures live in this area.
Minamata disease
Minamata Bay was heavily polluted in the 1950s and 1960s by
wastewater, mixed with
mercury dumped into
Hyakken Harbour from the
Chisso Corporation's factory in
Minamata, particularly by
methylmercury
Methylmercury is an organometallic cation with the formula . It is the simplest organomercury compound. Methylmercury is extremely toxic, and its derivatives are the major source of organic mercury for humans. It is a bioaccumulative environment ...
. The highly toxic compound
bioaccumulated in fish and shellfish in the bay which, when eaten by the people living around the bay, gave rise to Minamata disease. More than 10,000 people were affected.
A memorial service was held at the Minamata Disease Municipal Museum on 1 May 2006 to mark 50 years since the official discovery of the disease. Despite bad weather the service was attended by over 600 people, including Chisso chairman
Shunkichi Goto and
Environment Minister Yuriko Koike
Yuriko Koike (小池 百合子, Koike Yuriko; born 15 July 1952) is a Japanese politician who has served as the Governor of Tokyo since 2016. Previously, she was also served as a member of the House of Councillors from 1992 to 1993, a member o ...
.
"Memorial service marks Minamata tragedy's 50th year"
''Japan Times'', 2 May 2006, retrieved 29 October 2006 (free registration required)
The poisoning of Minamata Bay had a large impact on Japanese culture as well. Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli and serves as honorary chairman. Throughout his career, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Anime, Japanese ani ...
used this event as inspiration to create his epic manga
are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and its anime adaptation. Toshiko Akiyoshi
is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader.
Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in ''Down Beat'' magazine's annual Readers' Poll. In 1984, sh ...
composed the jazz suite ''Minamata'' for big band, performed on her album ''Insights'' divided into three parts, reflecting the transition of the village from innocence to prosperity and consequence.
References
Bays of Kyushu
Landforms of Kumamoto Prefecture
{{Kumamoto-geo-stub