HÀ TĨNH — Authorities in the central province of Hà Tĩnh have denied the rumour which claimed that fish on a local coast were found dead as a result of the Formosa spill.

Phan Duy Vĩnh, deputy chairman of the province’s Kỳ Anh Town, told the Hà Tĩnh newspaper that the dead fish were washed ashore after being discarded by a fishing boat.

The town is home to the Hưng Nghiệp Formosa Steel Plant, whose toxic spill killed fish en mass in the ocean bordering four central provinces of Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị and Thừa Thiên- Huế in April 2016.

Vĩnh said the quantity of dead fish was just some 3kg. He suspected the fish to have died after being discarded by the fishermen or due to blast fishing, in which fishermen use dynamite to kill fish.

Trần Xuân Hồ, a local fisherman, said fishing boats often harvested good fish and dumped the other batch to the sea. The waste dead fish would either float in the water or be washed ashore, depending on the tide.

Last Saturday, locals found many dead fish at the edge of the coast, suspecting another incident of mass fish deaths.

In a related news, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in the central province of Quảng Trị denied that the total volume of dead fish found at the coast was 30 tonnes.

According to Võ Văn Hưng, the department’s director said it was a rumour and was based on the fact that some 10kg of dead fish were collected from beaches in the province’s Vĩnh Linh and Gio Linh districts a week ago.

Earlier this month, locals discovered mass fish deaths in beaches. Local authorities suspected the fish to have been killed by dynamite used by fishermen to catch fish. — VNS