Dead Vietnam fish to cost Taiwan firm

HANOI, Vietnam — The government of Vietnam announced Thursday that a Taiwanese-owned steel plant in the country was responsible for an estimated 70 tons of dead fish along the central coast, and said the plant has pledged to pay $500 million in compensation.

The head of the Government Office, Mai Tien Dung, said at a news conference that the subsidiary of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Group was responsible for the dead fish along more than 125 miles of coastline in early April.

Dung said the subsidiary, Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp., in the Vung Anh economic zone in Ha Tinh province, has agreed to pay $500 million to compensate affected people, clean up the environment and help fishermen find new jobs.

The $10.6 billion steel complex, which includes a steel plant, a power plant and a deep-water port, has been conducting test operations. Dung said problems during the test run caused wastewater containing toxics such as phenol and cyanide that exceeded allowable limits to be discharged into the sea.

The company’s chairman, Chen Yuan Cheng, apologized in a video shown at the news conference.

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