Sungai Merah is Dead

Sibuians surrounded bridges along Sungai Merah to fish in dead fishes. Fish market sales and stomach ache cases increment predicted tomorrow.

Today's weather is hot and sunny. And the flood have receded in most places, allowing simple Sibu-folks to go around their business normally again. However today I stumbled a large crowd in Sungai Merah.

People here only crowd around bridges for fishing, pakto or if someone just jumped off the bridge. Curious if it's the latter, I decided to join in.

Turns out they are netting fishes. Dead and dying fishes floating downstream along the Sungai Merah lit. Red River.

Another person kepoh like me told me there were more of the floaters in the morning and several opportunistic Sibuians grabbed as much fish as they can, leaving virtually nothing for me to take pictures of by then (3pm). However some persistent fishermen caught whatever leftovers the river yielded. And for leftovers, some of the fish are quite a pricey catch. Keli, sepat, buris, and some more fish of which I'm not sure what their native names are.

Although it's a free for all free fishing, or simply netting, I'm wondering what killed these fishes. The very same kepoh person told me there's been some logging upstream that killed them, however the logic escaped me. I'm assuming the recent flood unleashed something in the river and killed all the aquatic life, the same thing that happened in 2009's January near Kapit (read the news here).

It looked like this in Belaga and Kapit last year and it could've been like this this morning in Sg. Merah. (Image source)

I'm predicting a huge influx of random fish from buris to empurau in the market tomorrow. OR a huge influx of people with dire stomach pain checking in the hospitals. My advise is to not buy any fishes for the next few days.