HCM CITY — Authorities continued to remove dead fish from HCM City’s Nhiêu Lộc- Thị Nghè Canal yesterday.

After clearing 14 tonnes on Tuesday, they removed nearly 56 tonnes at noon on Wednesday from the canal, which runs through Districts 1, 3, Bình Thạnh, and Phú Nhuận.

The largest numbers were found in the section between Kiệu and Công Lý bridges in District 3, with cichlids, tilapia and carp accounting for most of the deaths.

Huỳnh Minh Nhựt, director of the HCM City Urban Environment One-Member Company, said 54 canoes and 250 workers were deployed to clear and disinfect the canal.

Nguyễn Phước Trung, director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told a meeting Tuesday organised by the Department of Propaganda and Training that this was the biggest incidence of fish deaths in the last several years.

Mass deaths had been witnessed in the 8.7km canal twice each in 2014 and 2015, he said.

It usually happens following heavy rains when dirty water from the sewers pour into the canal along with rainwater.

There was a downpour in several areas on Monday evening, which ended a heat wave that had scorched the city for weeks.

The dead fish would be treated at the Đa Phước dumping ground in Bình Chánh District to prevent it from polluting water resources, Trung said.

Trần Văn Sơn, deputy head of the HCM City Division of Seafood Resource Quality Protection and Management, said mass fish deaths occurred in Nhiêu Lộc-Thị Nghè but not other canals because it is connected with drainage networks in Tân Bình District.

Trần Đình Vĩnh, head of the agency in charge of inspecting water quality in HCM City, said 30 tonnes of seolite has been imported and poured into the canal.

The city People’s Committee has ordered the speeding up of the HCM City Environmental Sanitation Project so that a proposed wastewater treatment plant is built and made operational at the earliest to keep the city’s canals clean.

Work on the project began in 2002, with its first phase wrapping up the same year.

According to figures released by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in October 2015, five to 14 tonnes of garbage are dumped into Nhiêu Lộc – Thị Nghè every day. — VNS