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Thousands of fish went belly up along the two-kilometer edge of the Linh Dam Lake in downtown Hanoi, creating a foul stench on Wednesday night.
Joggers making their way around the edge of the lake in Hoang Mai District first noticed the problem at around 8 p.m. A few hours later, dead fish coated the embankment. Carp as large as five kilograms could be seen floating among the dead.
Tran Dang Giang, a local, said he and his wife decided to skip their nightly exercise since “the stink was unbearable.”
Several police officers arrived to evaluate the situation after midnight on Thursday.
Although an official conclusion remains forthcoming, several locals believed the fish died from pollution, which claimed nearly five tons of fish here in March 2009.
Hanoi has become notorious for its foul waters in recent years. Early this month, the problem returned to the fore when 200 tons of fish washed up dead in the West Lake, the city's largest body of water.
The polluters have yet to be identified.
A study from the Institute for Environmental Science and Development recently found all of Hanoi’s urban lakes and waterways heavily polluted.
The city hopes to resolve the problem with help from a $726-mil sewage treatment plant.
Construction began early this month and is slated to finish in three years. The system is designed to treat 270,000 cubic meters of sewage every day, by collecting waste along the major Lu, To Lich and Nhue rivers and bringing the rivers back to life.
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