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The channel that was dug by a local resident on Saturday. Migue Fernández
Hundreds of fish die after being trapped in mouth of Malaga's Guadalhorce river
Environment

Hundreds of fish die after being trapped in mouth of Malaga's Guadalhorce river

The Junta de Andalucía worked quickly to construct an outlet channel to the sea to facilitate the drainage of the river when the tide goes out, after some 350 fish died at the weekend

Jesús Hinojosa

Malaga

Monday, 22 January 2024, 16:10

The Junta de Andalucía's regional ministry of the Environment said around 350 fish died on Saturday after being trapped in a pool of water at the mouth of the River Guadalhorce in Malaga with thousands of other specimens being unable to reach the sea. It is believed this may have been caused by the reduction in the river's flow caused by the drought, and by the increase, due to tidal factors, in the amount of sand at the river’s mouth.

The Junta said that "it continues to work at the mouth of the Guadalhorce to improve the wetlands in order to guarantee a channel to the sea and therefore help to prevent the death of more fish in this area".

On Saturday morning a resident of Puerta Blanca, who is a regular visitor to the area, borrowed a shovel from a building site after seeing the floundering fish and opened a channel to connect a pool, in which thousands of fish had been trapped, with the sea, saving hundreds of the aquatic animals.And Debbe

The same afternoon, the Junta's department of the Environment used one of the excavators it has in the area to remove the sand that had blocked the river’s outlet to the Sacaba beach area.

The emergency channel opened by the Junta de Andalucía on Saturday afternoon. SUR

The Junta said results from diagnostic tests will determine the exact cause of the deaths. The regional government said that it considers that “the lack of oxygen caused by the accumulation of sediment due to the tides of recent days, coupled with the drop in water level of the river, could have caused a pool that left the fish without oxygen, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of specimens. However, other causes have not been ruled out and we will have to wait for the laboratory results".

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surinenglish Hundreds of fish die after being trapped in mouth of Malaga's Guadalhorce river