As temperatures warm in late spring in areas devastated by the tsunami spawned by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, the stench is worsening and even threatening the health of residents.
As temperatures warm in late spring in areas devastated by the tsunami spawned by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, the stench is worsening and even threatening the health of residents.
Rotting fish, such as saury and mackerel, are scattered in rice fields in the Hashikami district of Kesennuma in northern Miyagi Prefecture, which are located about one kilometer from the coast.
"Everyone leaves the rice fields after staying there for 30 minutes at most," a 63-year-old company employee living nearby said, while smiling wryly.
Along with the large volume of fish washed away from processing factories is rotting garbage that cannot be collected by local governments. Some experts say that the foul odor emanating from the rotting fish and garbage could even cause health problems among residents.
In Kesennuma, one of the largest fishing towns in the Sanriku region that stretches from Iwate Prefecture to northern Miyagi Prefecture, there are many marine product processing factories that were destroyed in the tsunami, and a large volume of fish that was kept in freezers and refrigerators was carried off. Some of the fish were even found in a closet on the first floor of the company employee's house.
Though more than two months have passed since the disaster, the area around his house is still bathed in an overpowering stench.
The Kesennuma city government wants to dispose of the rotting fish. However, an official of the local government's environment section said, "As fish are scattered in a wide area, we cannot remove all of them quickly."
According to a survey of the municipal government, about 20,000 tons of fish and processed marine products remain in freezers and refrigerators at 90 facilities in the city and have rotted.
The fish have been taken to piers and piled up there to be loaded onto boats and tossed into the sea. However, these rotting fish are also contributing to the strong stench in the air.
In Miyako in Iwate Prefecture, facilities of marine products processing plants in coastal areas were also destroyed by the tsunami. As a result, about 3,000 tons of fish, such as salmon and Alaska pollock, began to rot.
The Miyako municipal government decided to deal with the rotting fish by burying them in a hole it had dug in a mountain, about 10 kilometers from the city center.
"It is like funerals for fish," a worker said.
An official of the city government's marine products section said, "Though the site may be temporarily giving off bad odors, they are subsiding gradually as we are placing soil on the fish."
In a burnable garbage collection site in the Shiotomicho district of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, kitchen garbage is piled up along with destroyed bicycles and "zabuton" cushions that were abandoned by families after the earthquake.
The area suffered ground subsidence due to the earthquake, so when the tide rolls in, roads are covered with water. At that time, garbage collection vehicles cannot enter the area.
The Ishinomaki city government is receiving an average of about 10 complaints from citizens about uncollected garbage or offensive odors every day.
"(If you stay there) your physical condition will become worse. If it becomes hot, the (bad) odors will become stronger," a 78-year-old man living nearby said.
In a garbage disposal site in a mountainous area, about 6,000 tons of burnable garbage have piled up and that amount is increasing by 100 tons every day. The Ishinomaki municipal government's Clean Center, which had been incinerating burnable garbage from the city and surrounding municipalities, was damaged by the tsunami.
Starting in mid-April, the city government asked the incineration facility in Takahata town in the neighboring prefecture of Yamagata to burn garbage. As the capacity of the facility is limited, however, incineration is not keeping up with the increase in garbage.
In a vacant lot in front of the prefectural government-run Ishinomaki Commercial High School, rubble is piled to the height of a three-story building.
"As it smells bad, we cannot open the windows," a third-year male student said, and members of a school baseball club are practicing while wearing masks.
The school surveyed its 583 students and 112 students of the city government-run Ishinomaki Girls Commercial High School about their physical conditions. At present, students of the girls commercial high school are temporarily using the buildings of the prefectural-run school as their school building was damaged in the tsunami.
In the survey, 96 students replied that they had pain in their throats, and 63 said that they had soreness or itching in their eyes. (The survey allowed respondents to make more than one response on ailments.)
According to Takashi Higuchi, professor of environmental engineering at Ritsumeikan University, the causes of the bad odors are not only processed marine products and garbage that rotted but also construction materials.
When plasterboard is soaked in seawater and mud, it sometimes discharge harmful hydrogen sulfide due to bacteria in the seawater. The substance could negatively affect humans, such as causing headaches and sore throats.
"There are also many cases in which people suffer mental stress due to bad smells and, as a result, their physical condition deteriorates. The situation will become more serious when air temperatures rise. That is because rottenness of food, (dead) animals and plants progress," Higuchi said.
"Also in order to prevent infectious diseases from spreading, the central and local governments have to take countermeasures in earnest against bad odors," he emphasized.
As some of the effective countermeasures, he proposed not only to remove rotting items but also to disinfect them by scattering sanitizers or covering them with plastic sheets to dry them out.
Meanwhile, at the request of the Ishinomaki city government, the Japan Pest Control Association disinfected rubble that was left on roadsides. In Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture, the association also undertook efforts to kill insects, such as maggots and flies, that had bred in the rotting fish.
The Environment Ministry has begun to consider countermeasures against the stench. An official in charge of dealing with the foul odors said, "We are now gathering information and considering what measures we can take."