Tonnes of lifeless fish have washed up on the banks of a lake on Lebanon’s Litani river, engulfing a close-by village in a pungent scent, in a catastrophe blamed on polluted waters.
Volunteers collected rotting fish carcasses close to the Qaraoun lake on Lebanon’s longest river, the Litani, the place activists have warned for years of water air pollution brought on by sewage and waste.
Piles of rubbish drifted within the lake close to the lifeless fish. Swarms of flies unfold close to the reservoir and 1000’s of fish have been decomposing in already soiled waters.
“This phenomenon appeared on the shore of the lake a number of days in the past,” said Ahmad Askar, a local activist. “The fish started floating up, and in abnormal quantities…It’s unacceptable.”
At least 40 tonnes have turned up lifeless in a couple of days, numbers which Askar and fishermen in Qaraoun described as unprecedented. They known as on the Litani river authority to seek out the trigger and go after anybody dumping wastewater into the lake.
The river authority mentioned this week that the fish have been poisonous and carried a virus, urging folks to keep away from fishing all alongside the Litani resulting from “an aggravated catastrophe that threatens public well being”.
The pollution prompted a ban since 2018 on fishing in the reservoir, which was created in 1959 with a large dam to collect water for hydropower and irrigation.
Last month, volunteers removed clumps of sticky tar from some beaches along the Lebanese coast after an oil spill which environmentalists warned would harm marine life.
Ecological disasters are the last thing Lebanon needs as it suffers through an alarming financial collapse and the aftermath of a huge explosion that devastated Beirut port last August.
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