Dead fish washes ashore at Marina Beach

CHENNAI: Visitors to Marina Beach were in shock after scores of dead fish were washed ashore on Wednesday evening, thanks to pollution of Adyar River, which is one of the most polluted in the entire country.

K Saravanan of The Coastal Research Centre and a fishermen activist explained that such incidents have become more common after the Chennai rivers (Cooum and Adyar) became highly polluted.

"During the times of high tides, the seawater would have more oxygen content and fishes would enter the river mouth along with the tide. When the high recedes and low tide begins, fishes would return to the sea. In such circumstances, the oxygen content is usually lower. But, nowadays pollution of the river exacerbates the low oxygen situation," he explained.

He added that fish would die due to lack of sufficient oxygen and low tide would take the dead fishes to the sea. Then waves wash them ashore.

"Earlier, when the river was clean, these kinds of incidents were never reported," he said.

Even though the dead fish were found near the mouth of Cooum river, local fishermen said that the dead fish would have been taken by sea current from the Adyar river mouth.

"For the last few days, the sea current has been faster than usual. Based on the direction of the current, fish must have died near Adyar river. Moreover, chunks of garbage also washed ashore along with dead fish at the spot," K Bharathi, president of the South India Fishermen Welfare Association, said.