Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) Vu Van Tam yesterday said that seafood caught from the waters beyond 20 nautical miles from the shore has been determined to be safe.

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The ministry has guided local authorities to inspect the quality of seafood exploited in four central provinces, where have been affected by the huge dead fish incident and certify the products’ origin, he said.

The safety of aquatic products caught in the area extending 20 nautical miles from the central coastline depends on observation results and forecasts by the Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and the actual situation in each province.

Local authorities and agencies under the ministries of ARD and Heath are responsible for supervising the quality of nearshore seafood products.

According to deputy minister Vu Van Tam, surveys by the ministry show that nearly 100 tons of fish have died and washed ashore so far. There has no statistics on the volume of dead fish sinking deep at the bottom of the sea.

The Prime Minister has instructed the Ministry of Industry and Trade and businesses to help consume offshore aquatic products. Seafood farming has temporarily halted as locals have still waited for authorized agencies’ guideline on how to take safe waters for their farms.

The Ministry of ARD yesterday sent four delegations to the four affected provinces to analyze seawater and dead fish samples.

Meantime, another delegation of seafood experts led by deputy head of the Fisheries Directorate Nguyen Ngoc Oai has been present in the region to guide locals to repair damage, resume production and stabilize their lives.

The ministry has tasked the Research Institute for Aquaculture No.1, the Institute for Agriculture Environment and the Research Institute for Marine Fisheries to identify the dead fish’s causes. These will be transferred to the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to make public announcement.

Dead fish put at 100 tons

Nearly 100 tons of dead fish has been washed ashore in central provinces since the first fish were found dead in the north-central province of Ha Tinh in early April, initial statistics showed.

The figure was provided by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam while talking to reporters on the sidelines of a press conference held in Hanoi on May 5 to introduce suppliers and sellers of clean agricultural products.

Tam said the fish deaths were calculated by four hardest hit provinces: Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue.

Tam said as soon as the incident was detected, the ministry instructed the affected localities to collect dead fish for destruction. The ministry also sent four working groups to take water and dead fish samples for testing.

However, the cause of mass fish deaths remains unknown, prompting the country to invite foreign scientists to come to help determine the cause.

Nhu Van Can, head of the aquaculture division at the General Department of Fisheries, said taking water and dead fish samples was implemented under the standards of the ministries of health and natural resources-environment.

The ministry has passed the samples and test results to the ministries of natural resources-environment and science-technology to evaluate and announce the cause of fish deaths. Many scientists have participated in finding the cause but it takes more time to exactly identify what has killed fish, Can stressed.

On Monday, Tam issued an urgent dispatch guiding the north-central provinces how to cope with fish deaths. Accordingly, fish farming should be put on hold until the cause has been found.

The dispatch also details a process of certifying safe seafood to minimize losses for fishermen.

 

Fishermen in Quang Binh find layers of dead fish at local seabed

Fishermen in a commune in the central province of Quang Binh where has been affected by the mass fish death said that they had found layers of dead fish in the local seabed.

Le Minh Ngan, Director of Quang Binh Province’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment said the fishermen in Nhan Trach Commune, Bo Trach District suddenly detected the problem while diving into the local seabed some 2-3 nautical miles from the shore.

The layers of dead fish also covered coral reefs with many kinds of fish are lying decomposing, contaminating the water.

Nguyen Can, a local fisherman, who usually fishes near the shore, said that normally his net was very dirty when fishing in the coral reef area, but recently, it is very different in colour as it has become whiter and looked almost new. He suspects that the sea water contains detergents.

Another local fisherman Nguyen Nhon said that the sea smelled of detergents.

Quang Binh’s the Department of Natural Resources and Environment has informed the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the problem, asking the ministry to carry out an inspection through careful tests of water and sediment samples to find out the cause of the mass fish death in the four central provinces of Quang Binh, Ha Tinh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue.

At around 7.30 am on May 4, seawater along a 1.5-kilometre stretch of coast in Nhan Trach Commune was reported to have turned red, with the colour having faded away by 11 am.

SGGP/Dtinews