Onsan Illness () is the name for a pollution disease in Korea that occurred in Onsan-eup, Ulju-gun,

Ulsan Ulsan (), officially the Ulsan Metropolitan City is South Korea's seventh-largest metropolitan city and the eighth-largest city overall, with a population of over 1.1 million inhabitants. It is located in the south-east of the country, neighboring ...

, Korea. It caused a variety of symptoms in the general public and gave rise to an environmental movement in the mid-1980s.

Background

In the 1970s South Korea’s dictator

Park Chung Hee Park Chung-hee (, ; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army general who served as the dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979; ruling as an unelected military strongman from 1961 ...

pushed for a

heavy-chemical industry drive The Heavy-Chemical Industry Drive (usually shortened to "HCI") was an economic development plan enacted in the 1970s under the regime of South Korean dictator Park Chung Hee. Background During the 1960s, the Republic of Korea had experienced rap ...

in an effort to modernise the country’s economy and make it less dependent on foreign imports, while encouraging foreign direct investment. The

South Gyeongsang Province South Gyeongsang Province ( ko, 경상남도, translit=Gyeongsangnam-do, ) is a province in the southeast of South Korea. The provincial capital is at Changwon. It is adjacent to the major metropolitan center and port of Busan. The UNESCO World H ...

was one of the areas identified for industrial development along with the independently administered coastal corridor between

and

Busan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, ...

. From 1974 onwards, an area of 2,000 ha in Onsan - to the south of Ulsan - became home to a multitude of industrial complexes, with 12 chemical factories initially in operation. After 1990, the area grew to more than 120 factories employing over 10,000 staff. The environmental impact gained initial visibility with gas leaks in 1982 and 1984 which required hospitalisation of over 100 residents. In 1983, the local government suspended the fishing rights of the largely rural population over concerns of pollution. In 1985, media began reporting of an illness that may have affected over 500 residents which was believed to be environmental. After the government ran blood and urine tests, an official statement pushed back on the theory of poisoning. However, environmental action groups questioned those results.

Onsan illness

In 1985 the environmental organisations KRIPP and KAPMA – predecessors of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement – drew public attention to cases of unexplained illness which seems to cluster around the city of Onsan. The primary symptom was

neuralgia Neuralgia (Greek ''neuron'', "nerve" + ''algos'', "pain") is pain in the distribution of one or more nerves, as in intercostal neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia, and glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Classification Under the general heading of neural ...

, but cases of eye and

skin irritation Irritation, in biology and physiology, is a state of inflammation or painful reaction to allergy or cell-lining damage. A stimulus or agent which induces the state of irritation is an irritant. Irritants are typically thought of as chemical age ...

as well as breathing problems were also reported. Most such cases became statistically relevant from 1980 onwards, when pollution became a significant problem. The collective group of symptoms was termed ''Onsan illness'' as a root cause was initially unknown and later thought to be cadmium poisoning. It is believed that over 500 cases of cadmium poisoning have occurred in Onsan.{{Cite book, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CgG0TfMyitEC&q=onsan&pg=PA211, title=East Asian Social Movements: Power, Protest, and Change in a Dynamic Region, last1=Broadbent, first1=Jeffrey, last2=Brockman, first2=Vicky, date=2011-01-07, publisher=Springer Science & Business Media, isbn=9780387096261, language=en Comparisons have been drawn with the Itai-itai disease, which caused similar symptoms and was caused by

cadmium poisoning Cadmium is a naturally occurring toxic metal with common exposure in industrial workplaces, plant soils, and from smoking. Due to its low permissible exposure in humans, overexposure may occur even in situations where trace quantities of cadmium ...

from the mining industry in the

Toyama prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Toyama Prefecture has a population of 1,044,588 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,247.61 km2 (1,640.01 sq mi). Toyama Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to the ...

in Japan.

Impact

The health impact combined with the risk to their livelihoods sparked a grass roots movement supported by the media. While the government maintained their position that poisoning is not the cause of this illness, it did admit to high pollution in the area. As a result, from 1991 between 30,000 and 40,000 residents were re-housed away from the affected area as part of a ''Collective Emigration Plan''. It is thought that over time some of those may have returned.

References

1985 in South Korea Health disasters in South Korea 1985 health disasters 1985 disasters in South Korea