The Road from Toroku to Samta

Toroku

Toroku is a small village located in a valley, halfway down Mt. Furusobo in Takachiho, Nishiusuki district, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. The panoramic view of Toroku is exquisite as a natural garden. Mountains are rising in the eastern and western areas, surrounded by green trees. And a clear stream runs through the bottom of the valley, hitting crags with a splash. The flowers are in full bloom in the spring, waterfalls flow down shining white in the summer, and trees submerged with silver frost in the winter. Each of the four seasons offers its scenic beauty. Strolling through the village, you will find many gods and Buddha in small shrines and temples, which remind you that Toroku was once a divine place for Buddhist priests.

But the saddest songs of the villagers began during 1600AD by the opening of a silver mine. The industry was booming until the middle of the 19th century under the direct management of the Nobeoko clan. However, the mine was eventually closed after a period of scanty production of copper-zinc ores. The mining began production in 1920 in search of arsenopyrite. Correspondently the mass production of poisonous arsenic trioxide (white arsenic) increased from burning arsenopyrite in a primitive furnace in Toroku.

The production of arsenic trioxide polluted the whole environment, the air, river water, and soil of Toroku. Honeybees died quickly, birds could not fly across the Toroku River, falling halfway. Domestic animals fell sick, got mad, and eventually died. Most of the trees withered. Farmers could not grow crops. The people living there, as well as the workers at the mine, became victims of arsenic pollution. A black age started in the divine village.

The Toroku mine pollution was made known to the public in 1971. The victims called themselves “survivors” since many, especially the young, had died with acute arsenic poisoning. They stood up to file a case at court for compensation of their health damages against the mining company. The court struggle took 15 years from 1975 to 1990 to reach the reconciliation at the Supreme Court. The victims and the supporters walked together and worked together even after the struggle ended. This spirit of “walking together, working together” has been inherited to the AAN since its establishment in 1994 by victims and the supporters and is defined as “Toroku Spirit”.

The AAN is a citizen’s association situated in Miyazaki City on the Kyushu Island southwestern part of Japan. The AAN accommodated a variety of personalities and improved knowledge and understanding of the problem of arsenic contamination. The energy and expertise built up over those years were then challenged into the formal foundation of the AAN, which aims to use its experience and skills to provide and meaningful response to arsenic contamination all over Asia.

people of samta

As part of its mission to Asia, in February 1995, the AAN participated in the “International Conference on Arsenic Contamination of Groundwater” held at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. At that time, the representatives of the AAN met an engineer of the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) and a doctor of the National Institute of Prevention & Social Medicine (NIPSON), Bangladesh. They informed the findings of arsenic contamination of groundwater and arsenicosis patients in Bangladesh to the AAN representative.

In December 1996, a survey team of the AAN visited several places where arsenic contamination were already been confirmed. Samta village of Sharsha Upazila in Jashore district was one of them. The AAN selected this village for a pilot study project finding the severity of many arsenicosis patients. Thus in 1997, the project funded by the Toyota Foundation made the way to Samta. The AAN opened its office in Dhaka in March 2000 and then in Jashore in September of the same year, to convey the messages of Toroku victims to the people living in arsenic affected villages of Bangladesh, with the aim of not to repeat their tragedies and to tackle the problem together with those people.