After a heavy rain comes the dead fish.
Not unlike Saigon's Nhieu Loc canal fish die-off last month, Hanoi's Hoang Cau Lake suffered a mass fish death on Wednesday following rains the previous evening and early on the morning of June 8, reports VnExpress.
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, locals gathered along the lakeshore to watch as dead fish began to float on the water's surface. According to local resident Tran Van Quan, fish deaths are a routine occurrence after a heavy rain, however the elderly man told VnExpress he had “never seen so many dead fish” as the most recent die-off.
Quan blamed the die-off on pollution caused by local residents indiscriminately throwing rubbish into the lake.
“Often workers clean the lake in the morning and by nighttime it's flooded with rubbish again,” he told the news outlet.
Throughout the day, fish continued to wash up on the shores and float atop the water of Hoang Cau Lake. Clean-up crews appeared, working around the clock to collect the dead fish out of the water, however by evening fish carcasses were still appearing.
Some local residents also turned up to bring the near-dead fish home to eat. In the video below, a woman claims that many of Hoang Cau's nearby residents had eaten the fish and had not fallen ill. Anglers also continued to cast their lines into the lake throughout the day.
An unnamed leader from the Hanoi Drainage Company told VnExpress that Hoang Cau Lake's only source of pollution is the storm drain system in the Hao Nam area.
“Yesterday afternoon and this morning there were big rains here,” the anonymous official told the news outlet. “Perhaps the water flowed into the Hao Nam drains and then into the lake, causing an ecological imbalance. However this is just an initial assessment; the reason must still be confirmed to find specific solutions.”
According to VietnamNet, over 100 tons of fish are expected to die in the lake.
Video via VnExpress.
[Photo via VnExpress]
