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Tsunami
Survivors
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Govt
scotches rumours of fish poison
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Officials
and others eating fish at
an open place in Chennai on Friday
with a view to dispelling the fears
of contamination of sea fish after
the tsunami.
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Chennai: India's southern Tamil Nadu state on Friday
(January 21) launched an awareness programme to get sea
food back on menu as rumour spread that fish caught from
the sea after the death and decay following the tsunami
disaster was not fit for consumption.
The
rumour had brought down consumption to almost one-fifth.
Rumour mongers said eating fish that feed on decaying human
bodies would cause diseases. Following a scare that a new
virus, `Zulican,' was spreading through fish the government
came out with a clarification that no virus of that name
ever existed. Karathe Thiagarajan, Madras city's deputy
mayor, leaders of various political parties and eminent
citizens ate sea food in public in a bid to clear the fears.
"Today commissioner and the other party workers came to
launch this awareness that eating fish, crab and prawns,
no communicable disease will come to the human bodies,"
Thiagarajan said.
The
rumours had resulted in steep fall in fish sale, badly affecting
the livelihood of fishermen who were already hit by tsunami.
Over 8,000 people died in Tamil Nadu alone, more than half
of India's death toll. An initial estimate by authorities
showed that around 85 percent of the nearly 700,000 people
displaced in the state were fishermen or their families.
The United Nations food agency, worried about a drop in
fish consumption in poor Asian countries, has said fish
from the Indian Ocean were safe and had not been made poisonous
by the effects of tsunami. The Food and Agriculture Organisation
said it was concerned that if people already weakened by
the tsunami stopped eating fish due to unfounded health
scare, there could be a grave impact on nutrition, especially
where fish is a dietary staple. The December 26 tsunami
killed more than 225,000 people across Asia and Africa.
- Jan 21, 2005
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