Never before have fishermen in the central provinces caught so many fish so easily and yet felt so sad as they have in the past few days.

On the 18th, 19th and 20th, the 20km stretch of beach from Vinh Thai commune to Cua Tung town (Quang Tri) was packed with fishermen. They did not go fishing but went to... collect fish. "I have been living in this fishing profession for 40 years and have never seen such a scene. I do not know what has happened to the sea and the fish," said old fisherman Ngo Thanh Tuyen, resident of Vinh Thai commune.

“We go fishing but don’t know what to do with them. They are all valuable fish, but they die for unknown reasons. No one buys them because they are afraid they are poisoned. We ourselves don’t dare eat them,” worried fisherman Hoang Xuan Minh, from An Phuoc Ward (Cua Tung Town).

Chickens and ducks died tragically from eating dead fish.

According to Thanh Nien reporters, although there are many dead fish drifting ashore, no authorities have yet organized a team to collect them to ensure environmental protection. The collection is mainly done by fishermen. These fishermen said that even though they cannot sell them at market prices, they can sell the dead fish to animal feed processing facilities. The places that are not collected give off a strong smell under the sun, seriously polluting the environment.

In Thua Thien-Hue, markets around Chan May - Lang Co area such as Loc Vinh market, Binh An afternoon market (Loc Vinh), Loc Hai market (Lang Co town), Thua Luu market, Nuoc Ngot market have only sold freshwater fish and vegetables in recent days. People are boycotting sea fish for fear of eating contaminated fish. "If no one eats sea fish, who will sell the seafaring profession to?", that was the sigh of Phu Hai village chief Nguyen Ngoc Chinh when he took us to the spillway on the brackish Lach Giang river.

“How can we dare to eat when chickens and ducks die miserably from eating dead fish floating in from the sea?”, Mr. Phan Thanh Bang, 53 years old, a resident of Binh An village, Loc Vinh (Thua Thien-Hue) asserted. Taking us to the Lach Giang river behind his house, which reeked of dead fish, Mr. Bang pointed to the ducks floating on the river, his voice full of resentment: “The flock of 10 ducks has just died after eating dead fish in this river. The 20 young ducks we raised to sell and eat for the upcoming Doan Ngo festival (May 5) have now died. Two neighbors raised ducks that ate dead sea fish, and their flocks of ducks have also died. We don’t dare to eat ducks either.”

In the early days, many people in Quang Binh still felt sorry, scooped up fish to eat or sold cheaply and there were some cases of mild poisoning after eating fish. Ms. Nguyen Thi Quy (from Hoan Lao town, Bo Trach district) recounted: "On the evening of April 17, my whole family ate sea fish soup cooked with cherry tomatoes and got poisoned. My child and I only ate the water while my husband ate 2 fish. The whole family had diarrhea all night and still hasn't regained strength."

Suspected factory discharges waste directly into the sea

On the afternoon of April 20, the Directorate of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) worked with the authorities of Ha Tinh province on the phenomenon of mass fish deaths in the waters of Ky Anh town.

Reporting at the meeting, the representative of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ha Tinh said that the phenomenon of unusual deaths of coastal fish and wild fish appeared from April 6 in the coastal area of ​​Ky Loi commune and in Ky Ha and Ky Ninh communes (Ky Anh town) on April 7. On April 11, after Grobest Company located in Ky Phuong commune (Ky Anh town) supplied seawater to the pond for about 6 hours, a phenomenon of mass shrimp deaths occurred. By April 14, the clams in Ky Ha and Ky Ninh communes continued to die, causing damage of about 4.71 billion VND.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy, Deputy Head of the Economic and Urban Department (Ky Anh Town), said that the first dead fish appeared in Ky Loi commune, about 4-5 km from Son Duong port of the Vung Ang economic zone, and the shrimp and fish died in Ky Ninh and Ky Ha communes, about 20 km north of Vung Ang, a day later. Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Cong Hoang, Head of the Ha Tinh Aquaculture Department, confirmed that the phenomenon of dead shrimp and fish all occurred when the tide rose at dawn. After that time, people pumped the seawater into the reservoir, but a few days later the water turned an unusually cloudy white color.

The results of water sample analysis by the Northern Center for Environmental Monitoring and Aquatic Diseases (Aquaculture Research Institute 1, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) show that the phenomenon of fish and shrimp deaths in Ha Tinh is due to environmental factors (not microorganisms). However, the toxic factor causing this unusual phenomenon has not been determined. This unit also suspects that the toxic factor is most likely due to untreated wastewater from the factory discharged directly into rivers and seas.

Previously, in contact with reporters, Mr. Le Xuan Vuong, Chairman of the People's Committee of Ky Loi commune, said that near the sea of ​​Vung Ang, there are 2 thermal power plants and 1 steel factory in operation. Fish farmers here suspect that the source of pollution is from these 3 factories. However, speaking at the meeting on the afternoon of April 20, Mr. Le Duc Nhan, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ha Tinh, said that because the water samples were taken after the fish had died and the tide had receded, it was very difficult to determine the toxic substances that killed the fish, especially to isolate the area to find the toxic substances in the water samples to track which unit discharged into the environment.

According to TNO