Manila (AsiaNews / Agencies) - At least 800 tonnes of fish are dead and rotten in a lake near the Taal Volcano, south of Manila. Scientists attribute the huge fish kill to a sudden cooling of the water after a hot rainy season. The cooling reduced the oxygen level of the lake. Fish farmers witnessed schools of fish swimming in circles before they floated dead to the surface.
Most of those killed were milk fish and tilapia being commercially bred in cages along the lake's shores. Both species are one of the staple food of Filipinos.
Some parts of the lake have become white because of the large amounts of dead fish, which is being dragged ashore by fishermen, put in plastic bags, transported by truck and buried in Talisay and in four other cities in the province of Batangas.
The government has banned the sale of the dead fish. The damage to fish farmers is estimated at 33 million pesos (about 534,467 euro).
Volcanologists say the fish death is not the result of a recent activity of Taal volcano. In the past, at the end of the rainy season had other fish deaths had occurred, but as vast as this time.