Batanes folk warned vs eating raw fish due to radiation

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya , Philippines  – Batanes residents have been warned against eating raw fish amid their possible contamination as a result of radiation from damaged nuclear plant facilities in the northeastern coast of Japan. 

Batanes Gov. Vicente Gato yesterday said that the warning was a mere preventive measure against the possible effects from the radiation leak at the Dai-Ichi nuclear plant in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture to the island province’s marine life. 

Batanes, the nearest Philippine territory to Japan, is only 168 kilometers away from Taiwan, which is adjacent to that highly-industrialized Asian country.

Japan has been experien­cing a nuclear leak which may possibly spread to nearby countries specially along the Pacific coast where Batanes lies since the Fukushima nuclear facilities were damaged by an earthquake-triggered tsunami on March 10.

“We have already advised our constituents to avoid eating raw fish which may have been contaminated by the nuclear radiation from Japan,” Gato said. 

Gato, however, stressed that so far they have no reliable information or findings if the island province’s marine life has already been contaminated as a result of the radiation. 

“If there is indeed any contamination, we don’t have experts to verify the level of radiation that it may have already possibly caused to our environment,” he said. 

Exposure to nuclear radiation can have fatal effect on almost all the systems or tissues of the body. It may cause loss of hair, impotence, impaired vision, blood poisoning to cancer. 

The country’s northernmost province, Batanes, inhabited by the indigenous Ivatans, lies across the Balintang Channel, which separates it from mainland Luzon. The Balintang Channel, where the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea meet, is considered by navigators as one of the world’s most dangerous sea routes.

Fears from nuclear contamination also came amid recent reports of villagers in Cagayan’s northern coastal town of Ballesteros being hospitalized due to stomach pains, dizziness and vomiting after eating raw anchovies freshly caught along the South China Sea coast. 

Locally known as monamon or dilis, anchovies are usually processed into fish sauce (patis) and fish paste (bagoong).