"Vietnamese Villagers Petition Local Government About Formosa Payouts", 12 Dec 2016

About 1,000 villagers from Thach Ha district in Vietnam’s north central coastal province of Ha Tinh…submitted a complaint to the local People’s Committee office about what they consider to be unfair compensation for those affected by a Taiwanese steel plant’s toxic chemical spill.

The group of petitioners, which included a priest and Catholics from Lang Khe church in Vinh diocese’s Thu Chi parish, argued that the amount of compensation offered to them is not enough to cover the losses they have suffered in the country’s worst environmental disaster…

The petitioners also demanded that local authorities pay compensation to each family that signed the complaint they submitted.

Formosa Plastics Corporation of Taiwan acknowledged in June that its steel plant run by Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation was responsible for the release of toxic chemicals in April that killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and harmed the livelihoods of more than 200,000 people, including 41,000 fishermen, in Ha Tinh and three other central provinces.

Formosa pledged to pay $500 million to clean up the spill and compensate people affected by it, but the government has faced protests over the amount of the settlement and the slow pace of the payouts…