The Ministry of the Environment and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced on September 18 that they had confirmed the presence of approximately 470 fire ants at Aomi Wharf in Tokyo Port.
During a regular nationwide port survey conducted annually by the Ministry of the Environment, approximately 400 and 70 ants suspected to be fire ants were discovered at two locations on a container yard on September 16. The following day, on the 17th, expert investigations confirmed that they were indeed worker fire ants.
Since the first confirmed case in Japan in June 2017, there have been a total of 161 cases across 19 prefectures.
