Hanoi Warned of Serious Pollution after Massive Fish Death at Poetic Lake

Massive fish death has been reported for the past few days at the biggest natural lake in the downtown of Hanoi, triggering concerns about serious water pollution though local officials gave initial cause of weather shock. It is unusual to see massive fish death in the West Lake as the latest incident is the worst so far, according to Pham Van Dong, deputy director of Tay Ho Co., Ltd which is in charge of cleaning the 500-hectare lake. Mr. Dong attributed the situation to the sudden change in temperature when it turned into scorching after rainy at the weekend. According to Management Board of West Lake, about the lake bears roughly 4,000 cubic meters of untreated water directly discharged from restaurants and households nearby per day. Results from recent water sample analysis showed that the ammoniac concentration is triple the permitted level. As a result, weather shock will become fragile to creatures living in the lake, said the body. Do Anh Tuan, chairman of Tay Ho district where the lake is located in, said that the locality has cooperated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Department of Fisheries to examine the water sample and results will be made available after a week but initial test showed that fish died due to lack of oxygen. Comments on newswires and social networks all attribute the status to serious pollution in the lake and criticized local authorities for ignorance of environmental protection violations surrounding the lake which become rampant now. Hanoi has mobilized armed forces to salvage dead fish over the weekend. West Lake or Ho Tay in Vietnamese is a freshwater lake in the center of Hanoi with a shore length of 17 kilometers. The large lake in a populous city becomes poetic with many surrounding gardens, hotels, and villas. For this reason, real estate prices near West Lake are staggering and the surrounding quarters are often full of many imposingly large edifices occupied by wealthy Vietnamese people and expatriates. (VnExpress.ne Oct 2, Nld.com.vn Oct 2)