A homestead and roads can be seen near the Darling River in the Murray-Darling basin, Australia鈥檚 largest catchment river system, located near the far western New South Wales town of Broken Hill in Australia, February 12, 2017. Picture taken February 12, 2017. REUTERS FILE PHOTO
SYDNEY 鈥� Residents in a remote Australian town are calling for authorities to act promptly and begin a clean-up, after hundreds of thousands of dead fish were found floating in the nearby Darling River.
Low levels of oxygen in Australia鈥檚 second-longest river are to blame for the mass fish death late last week near the town of Menindee in New South Wales state, around 1,000 km (620 miles) west of the state capital Sydney, environmental authorities said.
It follows fish deaths in the same area in 2018 and 2019 where up to a million fish died from poor water flow, poor water quality, and sudden temperature changes.
鈥淥ther than rainwater 鈥� we 100 percent rely on that river for our household domestic use,鈥� Karen Page, a Menindee resident, told state broadcaster ABC.
鈥淎s soon as they鈥檝e seen what was happening, they should鈥檝e had that equipment here. They should鈥檝e already been cleaning this out.鈥�
New South Wales Police said late on Sunday that an emergency operations centre was being set up in Menindee to coordinate the disposal of the decomposing fish and to organize the supply of clean water.
Joy Becker, a professor of aquatic animal health at the University of Sydney, said it would take a significant amount of time for the river鈥檚 ecosystem to recover.
鈥淚t does mean that those populations (of fish) may not rebound as quickly or at the same magnitude,鈥� she said.
鈥淧est species can actually just take over that spot, which makes it even harder for native fish to recover.鈥�
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