+ A
A -
AFP
Hanoi
A Taiwanese steel firm behind a toxic spill that killed tonnes of fish in central Vietnam last year was fined for a second time for illegally burying"harmful" waste, official sources said Sunday.
The deadly dump from Formosa's $11 billion steel plant in Ha Tinh province sparked one of the country's worst environmental catastrophes, decimating livelihoods along swathes of coastline and prompting months of rare protests in the authoritarian country.
The firm was initially fined $500 million for pouring toxic chemicals -- including cyanide -- into the ocean in April 2016, and has now been ordered to pay an additional $25,000 on separate charges of burying harmful solid waste in the ground, according to the official Cong Ly newspaper.
A local contractor will also be fined $20,000 for helping to dispose of the 100 cubic metres of waste, added Cong Ly, the mouthpiece of the Supreme Court.
An official in Ha Tinh province confirmed the latest fine to AFP on Sunday, without providing further details.
The waste was buried in July 2016, and local residents reported seeing trucks ferrying the material to a farm belonging to the contractor hired to dispose of it.
