VietNamNet Bridge - The construction of artificial islands and permanent infrastructure items has adversely affected Vietnam's territorial waters.

The Filipino Inquisitor reported that Kalayaan ATIN ITO, a group of young volunteers aiming to unite the Filipino people, affirmed that Chinese ships have poured chemicals into the waters around the Thi Tu Island of Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) Islands.

The organization posted on its Facebook the images of dead fish on the sandy beach that stretches along the coast.

Nguyen Chu Hoi, chair of the Nature and the Marine Environment Society, said the Chinese action of destroying coral reefs and other marine ecosystems in Vietnam’s Spratly Islands to get materials for building artificial islands on shoals has been condemned by the entire world.

In trying to change the natural entities in the Spratlys, China aims for several purposes. First, creating a legal status for the shoals it has appropriated; second, the militarizing of the East Sea, including the Spratly Islands; and third, setting up the administration in the islands with the so-called "Sansha city" it unilaterally established in 2012.

The construction of artificial islands and permanent infrastructure items has adversely affected Vietnam's territorial waters.

This is a provocative massacre of the marine environment. The Filipino youth group  also showed the images.

Satellite images, aerial photographs and photographs taken by the U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles in scientific research in February also recorded rapid changes of the appearance in Truong Sa Islands.

According to the expert, Vietnamese agencies should ask for more information about the dead fish as reported by the Filipino organization from the people on Truong Sa Island. 

The forces operating on the sea might also see floating dead fish from a distance of 450 kilometers as the crow flies towards the Vietnamese mainland.

Also according to the expert, scientists warned that the China’s construction of artificial islands was a reason behind the mass fish deaths and the destruction of submarine coral reefs.

East Sea affected

Hoi affirmed that Chinese activities of building artificial islands will seriously affect the environment of the East Sea, the biodiversity and the fisheries of all the countries around the East Sea. It will especially have a bad impact on Vietnamese territorial waters. Vietnam is seriously affected by monsoons and marine environment incidents. 

The major effects include: changing the ecological conditions of the seas, causing biodiversity degradation to the area, which is considered the center of species diversity in the East Sea; causing a loss of value of coral-reef ecosystem and shallow-sea ecosystem in Truong Sa; and causing turbidity and an increase in the amount of waste products, especially residue of toxic chemicals in the marine environment.

Dat Viet