Photo Story

TOROKU-Brilliant Darkness

About 30 minutes by car to the borderline of Oita Pref., from the center of Takachiho-cho in Miyazaki Pref. The village at the extreme of Miyazaki Pref. is Toroku area, a small village with the population of 150 inhabitants approximately of some 30 families at present.
　At the middle of this village, the air was polluted, the soil was contaminated and the water was also contaminated since a mine was opened in 1920 producing the arsenious acid, it is said deadly poison with o.1 gm as lethal dose. Thus arose the “Toroku mining pollution case”, inducing the chronical arsenic poisoning symptom in many inhabitants, becoming extinct of the families, not yielding the crops and cows and horses were dieing one after another.