Can You Eat the Oysters and Seafood Scattered Across the Beach After a Typhoon? How Deadly Is Watching the Waves Before a Typhoon?
Key SummaryAround the time a typhoon makes landfall, people often head to coastal seawalls to "watch the huge waves" or visit the beach afterward to collect the oysters, geoduck, and dead fish scattered along the shore. What potentially deadly risks are hidden behind these two activities?
Deadly Misconception No. 1: The Typhoon Hasn't Arrived Yet—Is It Safe to Go to the Beach and Film the Waves?
Many people assume, "The sun is still shining and the wind isn't strong, so it must be safe to go to the beach and watch the huge waves." In reality, when a typhoon is still 500–1,000 kilometers from the coast, the typhoon swell it generates over the ocean travels far faster than the typhoon itself (swell can travel at 50–80 kilometers per hour, while a typhoon typically moves at only 20 kilometers per hour).
- Rogue waves: When the swell reaches shallow coastal waters, the seabed obstructs and slows it, causing wave heights to abruptly surge severalfold. Without warning, these waves can overtop seawalls several meters high. Every year, tourists are swept into the sea and killed by rogue waves on the eve of a typhoon, even in clear, calm weather.
Deadly Misconception No. 2: Oysters and Seafood Everywhere on the Beach After a Typhoon—a Free Feast?
Typhoon waves wash shellfish, oysters, crabs, and fish from seabed farms onto the beach. This may appear to be a "gift from the sea," but it is actually a high-risk food safety danger zone:
- Vibrio vulnificus ("flesh-eating bacteria") infection: Typhoons stir up seabed sediment while rainwater washes over land, causing concentrations of Vibrio vulnificus in nearshore waters to soar. If someone walks barefoot on the beach collecting seafood or pries open oysters and their hands or feet are cut by a shell, the bacteria can enter the bloodstream and cause necrotizing fasciitis or even sepsis within 24–48 hours. The fatality rate exceeds 50%.
- Sewage intrusion and contamination by heavy metals or biotoxins: Typhoon rain can cause urban sewers to overflow and wastewater from coastal chemical plants or landfills to flow into nearshore waters. Filter-feeding shellfish such as oysters, mussels, and clams can accumulate large amounts of norovirus, hepatitis A virus, E. coli, and red-tide shellfish toxins (cooking may not completely destroy paralytic shellfish toxins).
- Aquatic animals with unexplained causes of death: Dead fish and shrimp washed ashore have often begun decomposing in warm water, producing high concentrations of histamine. Eating them can easily cause severe food poisoning.