TACLOBAN CITY – The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources regional office in Eastern Visayas is conducting an investigation on the reported fishkill in Cancabato Bay here.

The reported fish kill broke out in social media when photos of thousands of dead fish scattered along the shore at the back of Tacloban City Convention Center went viral on Tuesday, 11 August.

Christine Gresola, BFAR-8 regional information officer, said a team from the Regional Fisheries Laboratory was sent to investigate but the it was not able to do a laboratory analysis because the samples were over 12 hours dead.

“The fish observed in the area were already in an advanced stage of decomposition, making them unsuitable for laboratory sample collection and further analysis,” BFAR-8 said in a statement on Friday.

Among the dead fishes found were white-spotted pufferfish (butete), flathead grey mullet (balanak), long-arm mullet (balanak), common ponyfish (sapsap), mangrove red snapper (katambak), and areolate grouper (lapu-lapu).

Tacloban City Agriculturist Romelo Anade said they are looking at two possible scenarios – the dead fish may have been either dumped in the area or died due to the hot weather and lack of oxygen.

Anade said the fishes could have been trapped inside the bay which they could not get out due to barriers put the in the construction of the Tacloban Causeway Project.

The construction of the P4.7-billion causeway project, which will connect the Tacloban City Hall area to DZR Airport, was stopped when the main contractor, Sunwest Inc., owned by former Ako Bicol Party List Rep. Zaldy Co, was implicated in the flood control scandal.

The project was designed to include a 360-meters central bridge to maintain seawater flow across Cancabato Bay. But just before the construction stopped, a huge part of the stretch was already filled with soil obstructing the water circulation.

Anade said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources–Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) is already conducting water analysis of Cancabato Bay to determine what could have cause the fish kill.

He also advised the public to refrain from eating marine products harvested from Cancabato Bay while results of the laboratory tests are not yet released.

The recent fill kill, however, is not the first since the construction of the causeway project started.

Bangus fishponds operators at the Kataisan Point near the airport have, in a number of occasions, reported an increasing mortality of their fingerlings.