Photo Story

TOROKU-Brilliant Darkness

The inhabitants of Toroku asked the mine to stop the operation, and appealed the then village office their actual circumstances of the damage, but without getting any interest and the village people had to accept the situation.
 The Toroku mine was closed in 1962, and the memory of damages had been leaking away even by the inhabitants in Toroku. But, at the same period when the relief of victims of pollution cases, such as Minamata Disease, Yokkaichi Asthma and Itai-itai Disease, were becoming to the nation-wide social problem, the teachers of Toroku Primary School, where the children of Toroku were studying, started fact-finding on the spot investigation of real circumstances from the inhabitants.
In connection with that, one of the victims, Ms. Tsurue Sato, uttered her voice appealing her own relief, and it was known nation widely in 1971.