Vietnam warns of unsafe seafood on its shores
seafood from Vietnam's central coastline is not entirely safe to eat, warned the government in comments reported by local media Wednesday, but it assured diners that there is a plan to control for safety.
The danger is part of the fallout from a chemical spill earlier this year that prompted a mass fish kill. The danger focuses on waters 20 nautical miles off the coast of four central provinces.
While fish from the middle depths have been deemed safe, the Health Ministry warned that bottom-dwelling fish such as crab and shrimp were contaminated with toxic phenol, the Health Ministry said in a press conference Tuesday, the state-owned Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
But authorities also unveiled a plan to actively monitor seafood coming into the wharfs, the VN Express news site reported Wednesday.
Samples of catches will be tested every two to three days to test for toxic chemicals, while the destinations of all fishing vessels would be screened by authorities to prevent fishing in unsafe waters.
The warnings come five months after more than 100 tons of dead fish began washing up on Vietnam's central shoreline in April.
Untreated wastewater from a steel plant owned by a subsidiary of the Formosa conglomerate in Ha Tinh province was determined by authorities to be the principle source of the pollutants, which included phenol, cyanide and iron oxide.
Formosa, which was ordered to pay for damages, has since spent 500 million dollars to compensate people whose livelihoods were affected by the leak. (dpa)
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